A Picture's Worth The Words of a Song
by siro arashi
Summary: What if Troy had met Ryan instead of Gabriella at the New Years Eve party but just didn't know it? A rewrite AU of the movie. TroyRyan slash or Tryan. Final chapter is done and up!
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I don't own anything of High School Musical or its characters, if I did then this story would have happened in its place.

Warnings: This story contains slash meaning boys with boys, meaning homosexual relationship. So if you don't like that sort of thing I suggest you leave.

I wrote this like back in March sometime and didn't post it up because the lack of slash fics but now since there is a lot more I decided to bring this out of storage. This is basically a story of what if it was Ryan that Troy met and not Gabriella at the New Years Eve Party but he just didn't know it. So its basically the same as the movie but with changes to fit with my story idea. So you could say that this is an alternate parallel universe kind of thing.

This will be mostly about Troy/Ryan or Tryan as I like to call it, as well as some of the original pairings in the movie. Except for Troy/Gabriella since none of it will be happening in this story. So every part that Gabriella would be singing, Ryan would be singing them instead, that would be interesting.

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Chapter 1

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New Years Eve...

We come to what seems to be a large resort with an enormous lodge surrounded by the white sparkling winter snow. Tourists were walking about outside of the hotel in the cool crisp air all in winters entire enjoying the night and looking upon the skiers that skied across the slopes.

Inside the recreational area of the lodge we can hear the bouncing of a ball echoing though the room with two male voices talking in a quick and tense manner. One voice was of a young male and the other was of an older one.

A brunette haired woman in formal wear walked briskly into the gym and was looking for somebody when she found them and was not amused. She wore an elegant black dress with cord like shoulder straps and a green shawl draped around her shoulders.

In the gym was a father and his teenage son playing basketball and it seem that they were going at it for awhile, since they were both glistening with sweat. The older man was wearing a grey sweatshirt with red pant with three yellow stripes running down the side from the waist to the ankle. The teen was wearing a navy blue sleeveless t-shirt with shorts and white stripes running down the side of the shirt and shorts.

"Keep working left Troy." the older man bounced the ball back at the teen who caught it.

"We gotta get ready for the championship game that we're expected. We'll torch them."

"Am I going left?" the teen panted as he stood in front of the other with his back to him.

"Yeah, its looks middle but you take it downtown."

"Okay, like this?" Troy breathed and fakes a left and turned around to the right and scores a basket.

"Woo! That s it man." Troy's father catching the ball as it fell down from the hoop.

"Boys!" the woman interrupted and the two guys stopped and looked at her.

"Did we really fly all this way to play more basketball?" she asked as she walked into the room towards the other two.

The father and son looked at one another then back at her and answered the same time, "Yeah!"

"It s the last night of vacation, the party, remember?" the woman turn around slowly in a twirl.

"Right! The party! New Years Eve." the husband now remembering.

"Troy, they have a kid s party downstairs in the free style club." the teen's mother pointed towards the door.

"Kids party?" Troy looking back her.

"Young adults, now go shower up!"

"Come on, one more!" grabbing the ball from his father, Troy pleaded a bit.

The woman just closed her eyes and sighed as Troy dribbled and shot another basket.

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The free style club...

The party at the free style club that Troy's mom mentioned what like any other party with loud music, packed with young adults dancing, socializing and playing games. The difference at this party was, besides the party hats that people were wearing but the masks as well. It was a masquerade party where everyone was wearing a simple party mask that covered the area around their eyes in all sorts of designs.

Troy who walked in wearing blue jeans, an un-tuck white dress shirt and a formal black jacket on top. Like the other teens at the party he wore a mask that was red with a thin gold border and small fluffy red feathers sticking out of the sides all around the mask.

With hands in his jean pockets he slowly walked through the room weaving his way around people and headed towards the centre of the room.

At the centre of the room, a small stage was set up with two microphones with stands upon it and a couple was singing a duet. It was a karaoke contest. As the song ended the host of the party hopped upon the stage.

"Alright! Give it up for a couple of snowboarders!" and everyone started to applaud.

"Who is going to rock the house next!" the host announced as the current singers got off the stage.

Immediately two spot lights started to move upon the room looking for their next victims to embarrass and one of them stopped on Troy. Troy's entire body froze with his eyes wide open like a deer caught in the headlights of a car. The second light stopped on a girl who was stand next to her friend when she also froze in her tracks. The girl had long blonde hair which reached her shoulders; her body frame was thin and a bit skinny wearing a pair of blue jeans and a white baggy turtle neck wool sweater that covered her neck which was quite unusual for a girl to wear that. The mask she was wearing was white with a large single white feather upon the forehead and little fluffy white ones sticking out around the sides.

The guys around Troy was trying to get him on stage but he resisted by giving excuses and the host walked over to the girl and pulled her towards the stage as well.

"I can't sing. No guys!" Troy trying to get out of this situation and but was pushed onto the stage with the girl.

"Hey, you know what? Someday, you guys might thank me for this or not?" as the host walked up between them and grabbed the mike and handed it to Troy and walked off.

Troy just stood there totally confused and thinking why him of all people. The girl beside him stood there nervously with her arms wrapped around herself, not looking at the guy and swallowed hard. The music to the song started to play and Troy placed his mike back on the stand and looked up at the screen that displayed the words of the song and he started.

Troy:  
Livin in my own world,  
Didn t understand

(Clearing his throat before continuing.)

That anything can happen,  
When you take a chance

(Troy was about to walk off the stage seeing that the girl wasn't going to sing but he was wrong. The girl took a deep breath and decides to just go for it and sang.)

Girl:  
I never believed in,  
What I couldn t see

(Once he heard her sing he started to go back to his mike. The girl's voice was quite beautiful; it was feminine with a low tone to the side of it, giving you a wonder if she was really a girl or a boy.)

I never opened my heart

(Troy: Ohhhh...)

To all the possibilities, ohhhh

Both: I know...

Girl: That something has changed

Both: Never felt this way

Girl: And right here tonight

Both: This could be the

(Both of them started to get into it and started to glance at one another shyly, smiling as well.)

Both: Start of something new

Girl: It feels so right

Both:  
To be here with you...oh,  
And now...lookin in your eyes

Girl: I feel in my heart

Troy: Feel in my heart

Both: The start of something new

Troy: Ohhh, yeah

(Troy was really getting into it now as well as the girl and relaxed and started to have fun, smiling and started to remove his jacket and toss it to the side.)

Troy: Now who d of ever thought that...um

Both: We d both be here tonight...yeah

Girl: The world looks so much brighter

Troy: Brighter, brighter

Girl: Oh, with you by my side

Troy: By my side

Both:  
I know...that something has changed,  
Never felt this way

Girl: I know it s for real

Both: This could be the...

(The girl and Troy was now dancing to the beat as they sang as well as everyone around them who were also started move along with the beat.)

Both:  
Start of something new,  
It feels so right to be here with you...oh,  
And now...lookin in your eyes,  
I feel in my heart,  
The start of something new

(Troy then grabbed the mike stand with both hands and started to dip it downwards towards the girl as he sang and she started to laugh a bit.)

Troy:  
I never knew that it could happen,  
Till it happened to me,  
Ohhh, yeah

(And Troy immediately pulled back.)

Both: I didn t know it before

Girl: But now it s easy to see

Both: Ohhhhh

Both:  
It s the start of something new,  
It feels so right to be here with you...oh

(Troy started to slowly dance and walked towards the girl.)

And now...lookin in your eyes,  
I feel in my heart

(Troy was now right up to her face and he could the beautiful blue eyes that belong to the person behind the mask as he looked right at her.)

The start of something new,  
It feels so right

(Troy started to advance on her smiling as the girl stepped back a bit in surprise and stumbled off the stage but was caught by the people behind her and pushed her back up onto it and she stepped forward a bit.)

Troy: So right...ohh

Girl: To be here with you...oh

Both: And now...

Girl: Lookin' in your eyes

Troy: Lookin' in your eyes

Girl: I feel in my heart

Troy: Feel in my heart

Girl: The start of somethin' new

Troy: The start of somethin' new

Girl: The start of somethin' new

Troy: Somethin' new

As the song ended everyone was clapping and whooping as the two on the stage looked at one another breathing heavily a bit and heart beating a bit fast from the singing. Troy was about to introduce himself to the girl when all of the lights in the room turned off and everything was pitch black. Immediately people started to scream and shouted what was going on.

"Everyone! Stay calm; we may just have a small power problem. So please stay where you are and we'll get this problem fixed." announced the host somewhere in the room.

After about five minutes of waiting in the dark, the light finally came back on as well as everything else that need power. Troy looked to his side to where the girl was, she was gone and he quickly looked around the room hoping to see her but couldn't.

At the far side of the room away from the stage was the girl with the white feathered mask who was heading towards another girl talking to someone. The other had puffy long blonde hair and was wearing a designer label outfit and stands out saying this person had the money. Tapping on the girl's shoulder the other turned around and faced her companion. Along with the expensive clothes she wore a mask covered with jewels and sequins.

"Can we go now, Sharpay?" the feather masked girl asked in what seems to be a male voice.

"What? Already, Ryan? I thought you were having fun?"

"Sure...as in you winning that bet of ours and made me dress up as a girl for the party, not to mention me being forced onto the stage to sing a duet with a guy. Sure, you can say it was fun. It was a good thing that I could make my voice somewhat sound like a girl or I'll be in real trouble." the girl said sarcastically as she pull off the wig off her head, revealing for a fact that the girl was indeed a guy with short blond hair.

"Well the guy you were singing with looks cute, why didn't you ask for his number?" the girl named Sharpay teased.

"Sure...with the guy's face partly covered, like you could tell. Look sis, just because I came out last year doesn't mean I will go around and ask the number of every cute guy I see. I am not that kind of person you know." although Ryan did have fun singing up on stage with the unknown guy which left him with this light happily feeling in his chest and butterflies in his stomach.

"Fine, I thought that coming here for winter vacation would help you get your mind of the prejudice back at school. If you want to go then alright, we'll go but at least I got a souvenir for you to remember this event by." Sharpay smiling holding up a digital camera in her hand and turned it around to show her brother. On the back of the screen was a shot of Ryan in his girl disguise on stage singing with the masked guy.

"Thanks, now lets go." and the brother and sister started to leave.

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Back with Troy...

Who was still on the stage confused as where the girl went as he twist his head about looking throughout the room. There was something about that girl that he couldn't put his finger on but he shrugged it off. He was about to walk off when the host grabbed hold of his shoulder and turned him around handing him something.

"Here's something to remember this party by." the host handing over to him what seems to be a photograph.

"Um...thanks." Troy taking the picture as the host walked away.

Turning the picture over, it was of him and the masked girl he sang with on the stage similar to Sharpay's photo shot but from a different place in the room. Smiling at the photo this was the most fun he had on this vacation with his mom and dad and he walked off the stage with a happy feeling.

He walked around the room a bit hoping to spot the 'girl' before heading towards the outside balcony to get some fresh air. Once he was outside, he took a couple of deep breaths of the cold air and suddenly the countdown to the New Years started.

"5, 4, 3, 2, 1...HAPPY NEW YEAR!" everyone at the party shouted.

Immediately fireworks started to fill up the night sky in all sorts of colours with Troy looking up at the large blooming night sky flowers made of light and sighed a bit. Unknown to him, Ryan and Sharpay walked right past behind him as they were leaving and were looking at the fireworks as well.

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So what do you think for my first HSM slash fic? So how do you like it? Want me to continue? Then read and review please!

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	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

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One week later, Albuquerque, New Mexico...

(Wild cats...sing along,  
Yeah, you really got it goin' on,  
Wild cats...in the house,  
Everybody say it now.

Wild cats everywhere,  
Wave your hands up in the air,  
That's the way we do it,  
Let's get to it,  
Time to show the world.)

On a concrete pavement a drawing of a school is shown exactly like if it was from a blue print as we come up to the really school that was from the drawing. It was lively and busy with students all about the grounds of the building just returning from winter break. A yellow school bus, like any other schools pulls up to the front and the doors opens and out came Troy. In black jeans, blue shirt, green jacket and one shoulder strap backpack, he was immediately surrounded by his school mates.

"Hey Troy! How it's going man!" a teen with puffy, frizzy hair pulled the basketball star player of their school in a one arm hug, as he moved Troy along with him.

"Hey Chad, what s up? Hey guys, Happy New Year!" Troy replied to Chad who was his teammate and childhood best friend.

"Yeah! It s going to be a Happy Wild Cat New Year man! In two weeks we're going to the championships with you leading us to infinity and beyond." immediately everyone around them started to cheer and scream and started to head inside the school.

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Inside the school...

We see the brother and sister, Sharpay and Ryan walking down the main hall of the school towards the entrance with Sharpay and her cell phone out. Sharpay wearing a full variety of magenta and pink designer dress with hand bag and Ryan with a white zip up fleece, black pants, white ivy cap and carrying a shoulder book bag. They walked right to the entrance as Troy and his gang came in and quickly shifted away to let her pass through them, while Ryan went around.

"The ice princess has returned from the north pole." an African American teen with short black hair Zeke, commented.

"You know how she spends the holidays like she always does." putted in Chad.

"What?" their friend Jason replied, another team member.

"Shopping for mirrors." immediately everyone started to wooing for the dissing comment.

The group walked by another group of individuals which were of the more genius side of the school's students. An African American girl who seems to be the head of the group was pinning up documents on the board.

"Ugh, behold the zoo animals hurling the New Year...how trivial." she commented as she looked onto the passing team.

As the bell to the start of school rang, she waved everyone off.

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Down another hall in the school...

We see a girl with her mother and the principal of the school walking together with documents in the principal's hand, making the girl a new student.

"Mom, my stomach." the girl turned to her mother nervously.

"Its always nervous on the first day of a new school, you'll do great you always do. And I agreed to my company's promise that I can't transfer until you graduate." the mom trying to calm down her daughter's nerves.

"I reviewed you impressive transcript, I expect you'll shine very brightly here at East High." the principal interrupted handing the documents in his hand to the girl.

"I don't wanna be the school freaky genius girl again." the girl turning back to her mother.

"You'll just be Gabriella." holding her daughter's face in her hands the mother kissed her daughter's forehead.

"This way." the principal appointed and Gabriella headed towards some doors, looking back at her mom and up the stairs.

As Gabriella turned the corner of a hallway on the upper floors of the school, she was too busy looking for her first class to notice someone in front of her and crashed right into them. Both went tumbling to the floor with Gabriella's papers everywhere around them.

"I'm so sorry!" a male voice spoke out.

"It s my fault for not watching where I was going." Gabriella replied as she started to pick up the papers.

"Here let me help." a hand started to reach out and grab papers that were around them.

"Thanks."

Once all the paper was collected they both stood up and the boy handed his sheets back to Gabriella, taking them thankfully.

"I never seen you around the school before are you new here?" the boy asked.

"Yeah, today's my first day. I'm Gabriella Montez." she introduced herself.

"Ryan Evans." the boy shook hands with her.

"So need any help looking for your first class?" Ryan asked with a small smile.

"Would you really? I would appreciate it." handing over her schedule.

"No problem. Let s see here, Drama class. Hey, you have the same class as me first so we can walk there together."

"Really? Alright." Ryan handed the schedule back and the pair headed towards Drama talking, getting to know each other a bit more.

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In Drama...

The students were still busy talking about their winter holiday, being scattered all about the room with no means of settling down yet. Troy, Chad, Zeke and Jason were in the class and so were Sharpay and many other students. From the front door, in walked Ryan and his newly made friend Gabriella as they continued to talk a bit before Ryan head towards his desk and Gabriella went over to the teacher. The teacher, a bit rounded blonde hair woman was sitting on a comfy chair at the front of the class reading some papers.

Gabriella handed her papers to the teacher went to look for a free desk to sit in which happen to be at the back of the room. As Gabriella walked past Troy who happened to be sitting on his desk at the front of the class, moved his head about to take a look at who happens to be the new girl. That s when Sharpay sat right in front of him on another desk and started to smile and giggled, flirting with him.

"Hi Troy."

"Hi." Troy replied looking pass her and the bell for the start of class rang.

"I trust you all had splendid holidays. Check the sign up sheet in the lobby for new activities, Mr. Bolton." as the teacher called out to the class as she stood up especially to Troy who happens to be still sitting on his desk while everyone else was in their seats. The star player immediately turned around and sat down.

"Especially our winter musical, we will have single auditions for our supporting roles and pairs auditions for our leads. Regarding our winter musical, I have an announcement of a certain change we're doing for this year's musical by request of our principal. Because of the huge dilemma concerning one of our students last year with the prejudice from our mass student body for their sexual orientation..." the teacher continued and everyone except for Sharpay and Gabriella turned their heads towards Ryan who immediately ducked his head in embarrassment and shame.

"The parents who are complaining about the attitude of our students and worrying, that the principal had promised them that our school is not like that. So with a bit of tweaking of the cast and story, this musical will include two couple leads, a gay one and a lesbian one." after that announcement all the students started to talk again except for Sharpay, Gabriella and Ryan who couldn't believe this was happening.

"Alright class, settle down! I know what you're thinking but what I think is this will be great for our school reputation and acting experience but the principal says if there are no sign ups for the musical after a week of the posting then we will go back to our old idea. Although I do really consider you all to try out."

"Mr. Danforth, this is a place of learning not a hockey arena." the teacher walked down the aisle pointing at Chad's basketball which he has in his hands.

"There is also a final sign up for next week's Scholastic Decathlon competition, Chem. Club president Taylor McKessie can answer all of your questions about that." the genius girl from before immediately put her hand up.

"Now since the winter musical sign up starts this week I decided to give you a short 3 people group assignment to do." all the student groaned, homework on the first day back.

"This will be due on this Thursday and I want you to do a search on the diversity of the different plays and musicals we know. Now I'll name off the groups you'll be in..." and the teacher started to call out the groups ending with, "...and finally Troy Bolton, Ryan Evans and Gabriella Montez."

Then suddenly someone's cell phone went off, ringing its tone throughout the class and Troy, Sharpay, Ryan and Gabriella were the only ones who immediately took out their cells to see if it was theirs.

"Ah...the cell phone menace has returned to our principal of learning. Sharpay and Ryan, cell phones and I'll see you in detention." at that time the teacher grabbed a colourful painted paint can walked around to each of them holding out the bucket, Sharpay just gasped and Ryan just gives a what? gesture as both of them dropped their cells in the bucket.

"We have zero tolerance for cell phones in class, so well get to know each other in detention. Cell phone! And welcome to East High Ms. Montez." Gabriella who couldn't believe it as she dropped hers in the bucket as well.

"Mr. Bolton, I see your phone is involve so we'll see you in detention as well." as Troy slowly closed his phone and dropped it in the bucket too and immediately Chad's hand shot up.

"No, no that's not a possibility Ms. Darbus your honour. You see, we have basketball practice and Troy..." Chad started.

"Ah! That will be 15 minutes for you too Mr. Danforth, count them."

"That will be tough for Chad. Probably he can't count that high." Taylor whispered to another student.

"Taylor McKessie, 15 minutes!" Ms. Darbus heard her.

"Shall the punishment continue, holidays are over people! Way over!" shouting at the class as Ms. Darbus dropped the bucket of cell phones on Troy's desk making him jumped a bit.

"Now, any more comments? Questions? Jason." Ms. Darbus asked the class and Jason raised his hand and everyone turned to him.

"So how was your holiday Ms. Darbus?" and everyone groaned.

The bell for the end of class rang and everyone started to get up from their desk and leave the class. As Ryan walked out of the door and only walking a couple of steps out in front, someone shoved him in the back making him tumble forward towards the ground. When he hit the ground, his book bag somehow opened up and his stuff went sliding across, all over the floor.

"The musical thing is your entire fault! Fag!" someone shouted out and ran off before they were caught as some people around Ryan laughed at him.

With some dignity, Ryan started to collect his things from around him as someone reached down to help him.

"The people in this school, are they always this friendly?" voice said in a joking manner and Ryan looked up and see Gabriella helping him, smiling slightly.

"They're only to me." the boy muttered.

"Oh, so does that mean..."

"Yes, I'm gay. Look, if you don't want to be around me I understand..."

"No, no! I just thought that people here are just mean, I mean just because you're gay doesn't make you any different from anyone else. Besides, I kind of know how you feel."

"What? You do? Are you saying that you're a les..." Ryan looked her right in the eyes.

"Lesbian? No. I'll tell you something but you have to keep it a secret." Gabriella kind of laughed at the lesbian comment.

"Um, sure anything."

"Well back in my old school, I was known as the freaky genius girl because I just happen to be really smart and I got the same kind of treatment as you did but not so severe. Anyways I consider you as my first friend here at East High." Gabriella whispered to the other.

"Thanks." Ryan smiled at her.

Then suddenly a third pair of hands started to help the two of them pick up Ryan's things and they looked up and surprised to see Troy there. After everything was picked up, Gabriella and Troy handed back the stuff to Ryan.

"Are you okay Ryan?" Troy asked the other boy worriedly when he saw the scene in the hall.

"Y-y-yeah, t-t-thanks." Ryan stuttered a bit as he looked away from Troy and was blushing a bit and quickly pulled his hand away when their hands touched as Troy handed his stuff back and smiled at him.

Gabriella who was standing between them and saw the entire exchange especially on Ryan's part, gave a knowing smirk of a smile.

"Hi, I'm Troy Bolton. You must be new here." turning to Gabriella and held out his hand.

"The school's star basketball player." Ryan muttered quietly as he turn away from the two but they heard him.

"Yeah, the school's star basketball player." Troy repeated while staring at Ryan.

"Gabriella Montez, nice to meet you." Gabi shook hand with him smiling.

"Look, I wanted to talk to you guys about the group project we have."

"Yeah?" both of Troy's partners answered the same time.

"I have basketball practice after school, well after detention and I was hoping you guys could start on the project without me but I'll be free tomorrow and I can help you guys then." Troy asked as he scratched the back of his head.

"Sure no problem, I think Ryan and I can handle it." Gabriella answered for the both of them as Ryan just nodded his head.

"Really? Great, thanks."

"Look, I have to get to my next class. I'll see you later Gabriella." Ryan interrupted as he started to leave.

"Alright, see you later." as the two who was left alone walked on.

"So, uh anyway welcome to East High." the captain of the basketball team introduced as they walked into another hall.

Coming up to the end of it at the corner of the crossroads to two other halls was a poster announcing the winter musical sign ups that Ms. Darbus mentioned to the class.

"Oh and now you met Ms. Darbus, I bet you can't wait to sign up for that." jokingly Troy pointed at the poster.

"I won't be signing up for anything for awhile, I just want to get to know the school. But if you sign up, I could consider coming to the show." Gabi laughed a bit looking around some more.

"Yeah. Yeah. That s completely impossible."

"What's impossible Troy? I wouldn't think that impossible was in your vocabulary." Sharpay suddenly came out from nowhere scaring the two of them a bit.

"So nice to you to show our new classmate around." looking at the winter musical poster then back at the other two.

"My brother and I started in all of the school's productions."

"Really? I didn't know that. Hmm, maybe I should ask Ryan about that. Well, I better get going." just smiling at Sharpay as Gabriella started to walk down a hall.

Troy who was also smiling was about to walk down another hall when Sharpay stopped him.

"Hey Troy! I missed you during vacation. What you do?" more flirting from the female Evans.

"Um, you know um play basketball, snowboarding more basketball."

"When's the big game?"

"Ah, two weeks." showing two fingers with his hand.

"You are so dedicated. Just like me!" both did a laugh, well in Troy's case a forced one.

"I hope you come watch my musical, promise?" the boy slowly nodded as he started to walked away.

"Tootles!" the girl waved goodbye with her fingers.

"Tootles." in a whisper Troy who stopped and turned around a bit and forced a smile.

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In the gym...

We see Troy and the rest of the school's basketball team in their Wild Cats uniforms, warming up to get ready for practice. Its been bothering him awhile but since the New Years Eve party singing incident, he's been wondering whether to tryout for the audition for the winter musical, even through they're a gay role.

"So dude. You know that school musical thing um, is it true you get extra credit for auditioning?" the captain asked his best friend as he stood there holding a ball and the other was stretching.

"Who cares?" Chad stopped and looked up at his friend.

"You know its always good to get extra credit...for college."

"You really think LeBron James and Shaquille O'Neal auditioned for their school musical? Especially a gay one?"

"Maybe? It doesn't have to be a gay one."

"Troy look, the music in their show is of hip-hop. They are rock or anything essential to culture its like show music, all costumes and makeup, its frightening." Chad thought about the last part and shivered.

"Yeah, I know. I just thought it might be a good laugh." Troy sighed a bit.

"Alright Wild Cats! Pair up! Lets go!" the captain turn around and shouted to his team.

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Later that day in Gabriella's Chem. class...

She was sitting by Taylor near the front, working out the equation problem that the teacher had up on the blackboard when Sharpay sauntered up to the opposite side of the lab table like a cat and slouched down to the opening between them.

"So! It seems you like, knew Troy Bolton." Sharpay suddenly commented, scaring Gabi a bit.

"Not really, I just met him today. He was just showing me around, like your brother did." looking up to the other girl.

"Oh really? Ryan? Well Troy doesn't usually interact with new students."

"Oh? Why not?"

"Oh its pretty much basketball 24/7 with him."

"Then maybe its because of your brother? And that should be 16 over pie." after quick smile and working out the problem before looking it over a couple of times and found and error.

"Yes, Ms. Montez?" the teacher seems to heard Gabriella as she turned towards her.

"Oh I'm sorry, I just uh, shouldn't the second equation read 16 over pie."

"16 over pie? That's quite impossible." the teacher repeated before she went over to her calculator to check.

"I stand corrected." after checking and Gabi was right.

Gabriella just went back to her work while Taylor beside her looked at her with very high interest at her smarts.

"Oh and welcome aboard." the teacher smiled at her and Sharpay just gasped at her, that she actually corrected the teacher and the comment made about her brother.

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Late in the afternoon in the hall where the winter musical sign up sheet was...

Troy walked by and stopped a couple of steps away from the pinned up paper, looking at the names and seeing that some people had signed up for the supporting roles but no one for the pairs auditions. Not even Sharpay or Ryan signed up which was kind of weird, especially on Ryan's part since he came out last year to the school he thought that the male Evans would be the first one to sign up for this. But with the treatment of the other students, no wonder he didn't sign up and Troy started to feel sorry for him a bit.

After a few more glances he walked off but not without Sharpay seeing him checking out the sign up sheet. She walked up to where Troy was standing a minute ago and wondered why Troy would be looking at the audition sheet as well there was something about the new girl. So she decide to do some snooping on her own and headed towards the library.

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Anyways thanks for all the reviews so far! I hope this story is going good so far. Read and review please!

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	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

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After school detention, Darbus style...

We come to the stage of the school's auditorium where Darbus is walking around to see how are people are doing with their jobs and giving instructions to everyone.

"Gold, more gold!" she told a girl working at the sewing machine.

Then she comes around to see Troy and Chad working on a tree, as Troy attached leaves and Chad paints the trunk.

"Paint! Paint! Lets go!" coming to Gabriella as she was working on the crescent moon for a night scene.

As Darbus walked around to the back, we see Taylor hustle up to Gabriella with a plastic paint bucket in one hand and a piece of paper in another all excited and such.

"The answer is yes!" Taylor said happily.

"Huh?" Gabi looked at the other girl confused.

While not far behind them were Ryan and Sharpay who was painting a wooden ladder, heard the commotion and wondered what was going on.

"Our school's Scholastic Decathlon team has its first competition next week and there is certainly a spot for you."

"Where did those come from?" Gabi asked as she pointed at the printed news articles in Taylor's hand.

"Didn't you put them in my locker?"

"Of course not."

Back over with Sharpay who was smiling a smirk at the other two and Ryan saw the expression on his sister's face and wondered if she have anything to do with it.

"Sharpay...what did you do?"

"Oh nothing, just helping out a fellow student to join in the school's activities."

"You didn't." Ryan sighed knowing how big a snoop that his sister is when it comes to certain things.

"What?" she said innocently.

"Sharpay!"

Back with the other two...

"Oh well, we love to have you on our team. We meet almost everyday after school. Please?" Taylor pleaded.

"I need to catch up on the curriculum here, well before I think about joining any clubs."

"But what a perfect way to get caught up! Meeting with the smartest kids in school. What a generous offer Taylor!" Sharpay suddenly came up to them with Ryan staying from behind the ladder, trying to stop his sister from making things worst for his friend.

"So many new faces in detention today, I hope you don't make a habit of it but the Drama club can always use an extra hand. And while we are working, let us pro the mounting evils of cell phones." Darbus interrupted as she walked around calling out to everyone.

0******************0

Over at the gym...

We see the basketball team practising for their game minus two of their players and we see Coach Bolton walking onto the gym floor.

"Alright guys! Let s hustle up! We got two weeks to the big game." looking around at his team, the coach counted that his son and Chad was missing.

"Where's Troy and Chad?" but no one said anything.

"Don't make me ask again. Where's Troy and Chad!" the coach demanded this time.

"Detention." everyone replied and the coach being pissed off a bit, went to find them.

0******************0

Back in the auditorium...

We see Chad who was asleep in the trunk of the tree he was working on and Troy was up on top with a paper leaf attached to string fishing, tickling his friend's nose with it being bored a bit.

"Perhaps the most heinous example of cell phone abuse is ringing in the theatre. The theatre is a temple of art, a precious cornucopia of creative energy." Darbus started to lecture on the reason they were in detention.

At that point Coach Bolton came walking in the doors and down the aisle.

"Where's my team? Darbus! What the heck are those two doing in a tree?"

"Its call crime and punishment, Bolton. Besides, proximity to the art is cleansing for the soul." Darbus turned to the coach.

"Can we have a talk please and you two in the gym now!"

Immediately Troy jumped off from the top of the tree and from behind walked around and grabbed Chad who woke from his little nap as they head out to the gym.

0******************0

In the principal's office...

"If they had to paint sets for detention they could do it tonight, not during my practice." the coach stated to the principal who was just sitting there, listening to the two argue.

"If these were theatre performances instead of athletes would you seek special treatment."

"Darbus, we are days away from our biggest game of the year."

"And we Bolton, are in the mist of our auditions for our winter musical as well. This school is about more then just young men in baggy shorts flinging balls for touchdowns!"

"Baskets! They shoot baskets."

"Stop! Guys listen. You've been having this argument since the day you both start teaching here. We're one school, one student body, one faculty! Can we not agree on that." the principal raised his voice to stop them from arguing anymore.

"So coach, how's the team looking? Troy got them whipped into shape?" changing the subject the drama teacher just groaned and left.

0******************0

After detention...

We see Ryan and Gabriella walking out together of the front glass doors of the school with no Sharpay in sight.

"So where do you want to start on our assignment?" the girl asked.

"How about my house?"

"Are you sure? I mean your sister..."

"Oh. You don't have to worry about her, she's meeting up with her own group so you won't see her at home."

"Okay then, your house it is."

So the two started for the Evan's residents and they walked in silence until Ryan spoke up suddenly.

"I wanted to say sorry for my sister today at detention." Ryan squeaked out embarrassed a bit.

"What do you...Oh. You mean it was her who..."

"Yeah."

"It s fine."

"Really?"

"Yes."

"Well I'm still sorry, my sister kind of changes to a different person when it comes to Troy."

"Oh, you mean like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde?" Gabi smiled humorously.

"Well, not as bad but close." Ryan giggled.

At the Evans residents...

The male Evans invited Gabi into his home and showed her to his room as she took in the large and expensive house she was in.

"Wow, what a nice place this is." the girl commented.

Arriving in Ryan's room...

"So Ryan, what s with you and Troy." Gabriella asked the boy suddenly.

"Whhhhaat?" Ryan was surprised at the sudden question.

"I saw how you acted when he handed you back your things, so don't pretend that you don't like him."

Ryan opened his mouth to answer but nothing came out of it, opening and closing his mouth a couple of time and still nothing and so he settled with silence instead and looked down at his feet.

"So I'm safe to assume that you have a crush on him?" Gabriella smiled.

Ryan didn't look up and just nodded his head adorably like a kid when being asked a personal yes or no question. He then looked up at her with pleading eyes asking her of something which she already knows.

"Don't worry, I won't tell."

"Thanks. Can we get started?" Ryan asked and Gabriella nodded her head.

As the male Evans started to take out his things from his book bag, Gabi took the time to look around his room. There were posters of all sorts from famous musicals and plays, a big flat screen TV on the wall, an entertainment system and a desktop computer. What caught her eye the most were the different pictures placed around his room which included Ryan's family but one picture stands out the most. The picture was of the New Years party that Ryan attended as a girl and Gabriella stood up and walked over to the picture, picked it up and turned towards the other.

"Hey Ryan, why do you have this picture?"

"Oh, that...It s a long story..." Ryan looked up and explained the entire situation of the bet and stuff.

"So you now know, can we get started?" after the explanation, the two got started on their assignment.

0******************0

The next day after school...

The three had met up again to work on their assignment but this time it s was Ryan who had something to do and so Gabriella was left with Troy to work on it. After a bit of talking and decision making the two decide to go to Troy's house to continue to work on the assignment.

In Troy's room...

Gabriella walked in as Troy left the door open, she took in the surrounding of the school's star player's room. There were posters of sports stars on the walls as well as trophies and a mini hoop attached to the back of his door. As she looked around some more and spotted pictures all around and there was one that she couldn't believe with her eyes. It was the same picture that Ryan had in his room, well not exactly being at a different angle and all but still at the same event.

"Hey Troy..."

"Yeah?" the boy looked up from the books he took out from his bag.

"Where did you take this?" showing the other, the picture she had in her hand.

"That? At a New Years Eve party I went to, why?"

"Oh nothing! Just curious that s all." and Troy turned back to what he was doing.

Gabriella just couldn't believe it, Troy and Ryan met at the same party and sang together and they didn't even know it and she wonders...

"So Troy, what do you think about Ryan?" the girl asked as she sat down on Troy's bed.

"Ryan? He's an okay guy, why?"

"Well I just thought, you being the star player and all that you would go with the crowd of the harassment." Gabi stated casually.

"Just because I'm a jock if you want to call it, doesn't mean I have to go with the crowd you know."

"Sorry, I just want to make sure and look out for a friend's back, that s all." and Troy just nodded.

Then Gabi decided to try something else and so she scooted across the bed, right up to Troy who happens to be on it as well and got up close to his face smiling. With the sudden closeness of the girl, Troy stared at her and started to sweat and swallowed hard.

"Um, Gabriella?" looking away from her.

"Yes..."

"Would you mind moving back a bit, you're making me a bit nervous here..." with nervousness in the boy's voice.

"I am?"

Troy just swallowed hard again and nodded.

"Oh I'm sorry, you're gay aren't you?" the girl pulled back and sighed.

"Wh-h-haaatt?" stuttered a bit surprised.

"Well I mean since you were a guy and all I thought..." Gabi said offhandedly.

"Look, I'm sorry if you took it the wrong way and all it s just that..."

"What?"

"I haven't met a person that I really like so I can't say if I'm gay or not so..." the star player replied thoughtfully.

"Oh...So...is there any girl that you actually consider liking?"

"Well...there is one..." Troy thought for a minute before answering.

"Who?"

"That picture you asked about."

"You mean the one of the New Years Eve party you went to?" the girl asked in interest.

"You can say that...That was the first time that I had the most fun with anyone before." the boy thought back to that night.

"Oh...really?" Gabi smiled mischievously.

"Okay then I'm sorry for the sudden come on. How about we just work on the assignment."

"Sure." Troy agreed and sighed in relieve in the change of subject and started to get busy with research.

0******************0

Wednesday after school...

The three of them got together again since it was the third and last day to work on Darbus's assignment together and they decided to go to the library. But this time it was Gabriella's turn to not make it, well not exactly. It seems that she had an meeting with the Scholastic Decathlon team which she joined after all of Taylor's persuasion and pleading, she will be joining them later and so the two boys headed off to the school's library together in silence. After walking half way there through the empty and quiet halls of the school, the boys were thinking of what to say to the other.

"So um, how's your basketball doing?" Ryan breaking the silence, not sure on how to word it.

"Um, its fine. We have the championship game in two weeks." the basketball player answered the sudden question.

"Oh? Then I wish you luck."

"Thanks...So do you like basketball?" Troy asked awkwardly.

"I played a little when I was in elementary school."

"Really? Why didn't you..." Troy who was surprised at the new information.

"Just say that my coach says that I don't have great eye and hand coordination to play."

"But you're great at singing and dancing..."

"That was after I quit and started to take lessons." Ryan smiled at the other.

"Oh." Troy laughed a bit, relaxed and started to feel at ease with the other boy.

At the library...

The boys had found an empty, secluded area with a desk and chairs and went around together and gather a bunch of books of what they needed. They then headed back to where their things were and both sat down right next to one another, only inches apart and each opened a book and started to read. After ten minutes of silence reading, Troy found something that maybe good for their report and spoke up.

"Hey Ryan..." turning to the other boy.

"Yeah?"

Both boys suddenly realized how close they were sitting next to each other as their faces were only a few inches apart. They both stared into the eyes of the other unable to pull away as Ryan's face started to blush a bit thinking on what to do. While Troy was lost in Ryan's eyes thinking to himself where had he seen those eyes before, they were so familiar. As the star captain of the basketball team continued on looking at the other boy's face, he realizes that even with all the goofy hats the boy actually look cute and adorable in them.

Unknown to the two, Gabriella was actually standing behind a book shelf looking through a small opening and saw the entire exchange between the two and smiled. She had just arrived a moment ago and was about to greet the two boys when she saw it and it was now the time to interrupt.

"Hey guys! Sorry to keep you waiting." and immediately the two boys turned away from one another and looked toward Gabriella with thankful expressions on their faces.

0******************0

Thursday, after school...

Gabriella had handed in their assignment for Ms. Darbus that day and now was searching for a certain female Evans, going by the name of Sharpay. After finding her target talking to some other students and when she started to leave, Gabi quickly reached out as Sharpay passed her and grabbed her arm and pulled her into an empty hall. When Sharpay saw who it was that grabbed her, she immediately pulled away.

"What do you want?" Sharpay asked annoyingly at the other girl.

"Look, I want to have a truce."

"A truce? Why would I want to have a truce with you."

"Its about Ryan."

"What about Ryan?" Sharpay suddenly asked Gabriella worriedly forgetting about their situation.

"Do you want your brother to be happy?" the genius girl asked suddenly.

"What s that got to do with..."

"Just listen..." and Gabriella started to explain what she learned of Ryan and Troy from the past couple of days.

"I should have known...I mean with all my flirting and advances he never did anything. The cute ones always turned out to be gay." Sharpay groaned and sighed and covered her eyes with one hand.

"So now you know you don't have a chance, then how about a truce?"

"Fine...a truce then...if I don't get a chance with him, at least my brother will." the female Evans gave a smirk.

"Friends then?" Gabi held out her hands to shake.

"Friends." and Sharpay shook hands.

"But if I'm going to help you with the situation of my brother...I'm going to need a favour from you." Sharpay grinned at the other girl who in turn look back with a scared and confused expression.

0******************0

Anyways thanks for all the reviews so far! Read and review please!

0******************0 


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

0***********************************************************************************************0

Friday...

We come to Ms. Darbus's class in the morning where the students are entering the class and started to take a seat at their desk, as the bell rang. We see Sharpay up at the teacher's desk and she handed what seems to be a big giant red candle to the teacher.

"Just something for you." Sharpay smiled and walked back to her desk.

Ryan and Gabriella had walked in talking a bit before going to their desks followed by Troy and his friends. As the basketball star entered he saw Ryan and he remembered what happened the day before and started to get a warm feeling and his stomach started to do flips. He had no idea what's going on with him but it felt like that butterflies in your stomach kind of feeling and he wasn't sure if it was a good thing or not.

'Am I having feelings for Ryan?' Troy thought to himself and at that moment the said boy looked up at him and he quickly turned his head away, blushing a bit.

Ryan, who was seated at his desk, felt that someone was watching him and looking up, he sees Troy staring at him but immediately turned away when the other boy realized that he was noticed.

"Well, I expect we all learned our home room manners by now since Monday people, correct?" Darbus walked up to the front of the class.

"If not, we have some dressing rooms that need painting." the teacher continued as Troy started to try to get some sneak peeks at Ryan without the other boy noticing.

"And now a few announcements. This morning during free period will be your chance for the musical auditions, both single and pairs. And I will be in the theatre until noon for those who feel bold enough to extend the wingspan of your creative spirit..." as Darbus announce the audition times and schedule.

0******************0

Later that morning...

In one of the many halls at school was Troy, who was at his locker putting away some books from his recent class. Closing his locker, Chad came bounding around the corner of the hall and was carrying a basketball like always.

"Yo! What's up man? So uh look, the whole team is hitting the gym during free period where will you have us run?" Chad greeted his friend.

"Uh dude, I can't make it. I uh, gotta catch up on some homework." Troy replied awkwardly.

"What? Hello? It's only the first week back and I'm not even behind on homework yet and you know I'm behind homework since preschool." Chad gave an unbelievable expression like Troy was crazy.

"That's hilarious. I'll catch up with you later." the star player laughed at his friend's joke before taking off.

"Homework? There's no way." Chad watching his friend leaving and tried to follow him.

Chad followed his friend down a hall which Troy who already noticed that he was being followed, tried to lose him and entered a nearby class and started to talk to a group of student.

"What's he doing?" Chad wondered as he watches his friend from the doorway of the class.

Then suddenly another student walks right up to the player and started to do a greeting which made Chad turned his attention away from Troy for a moment. Seeing the distraction, the basketball captain immediately headed to the back of the class and exited through the second back door of the room. Chad who turn back towards inside the class and seeing his friend was gone, quickly glanced around inside. While Troy walked out back into the hall and behind his friend and quickly sneaked off.

Dashing down the stairs and he manage to get outside and around the school where when he walked around a corner, his dad came out from one of the doors and thought he saw his son. Coach Bolton walked up to the corner of the building and looked around but no one was there. Going through the garage of the car shop class of the school hoping no one would spot him and well he was about to make it back inside of the school, he bumped into the teacher of the class.

"Short cut, late for class." the excuse that Troy gave as the teacher looked at his watch, opening the door he manages to ended up back inside of the school and entered a hallway.

0******************0

In the auditorium...

Troy manages to get himself into the backstage of the auditorium and he was pushing a janitor's trolley around to hide himself with which was full of cleaning supplies and with mops and brooms. Wheeling the trolley up behind a camel prop, Troy looks around the stage and sees that the auditions hadn't started yet. Wheeling the trolley further up, he sprinted up to behind the curtain of the stage and looked out to the front and sees Darbus and people who were auditioning for the musical walking in and quickly stepped back away from the curtain and disappeared. The drama teacher walked right up onto the stage as the people who were auditioning sat down at the seats in front of her.

"This is where the true expression of the artist is realized. Where inner truth is revealed through the actor journey where..." Darbus stopped when the bell rang.

"Was that a cell phone!" she shouted and the students started to search themselves.

"No ma'am that was the warning bell." a girl in glasses next to Darbus told her.

"Ah. Those wishing to audition must understand that time is of the essence, we have many roles to cast and final callbacks will be next week." Darbus continued and at the front entrance of the auditorium we see Troy pushing the janitor's trolley in hiding behind it as he watches.

"First you'll sing a few bars and I'll give you a sense whether or not the theatre is your calling. Better to hear it from me now than your friends later. Our composer Kelsi Nielsen will accompany you and be available for rehearsals prior to callbacks. Shall we..." Darbus continued and introduced the girl beside her.

First up was a girl with frizzy hair and a red hair bow tie attached to the top of her head. Wearing a white dress blouse with a light blue wool vest on top and a dark green skirt with leaf patterns on it. Her singing was hyper and excited like she was high or something and her voice was off tune badly.

"It's hard to believe that I couldn't see, that you're always right there beside me.

This feeling's like no other, I want you to know!"

In the audience we see Sharpay who was sitting with Gabriella right next to her they both stared at the girl and couldn't believe she came to audition.

"Yes...thank you. Next!" Darbus stopped her while smiling.

Next was a guy in a brown dress suit with a red tie and combed back hair and you can see he was nervous as he started to sing which was more like reading.

"It's hard to believe that I couldn't sneezed see, that you're always right there next beside me.

This feeling's like no other..." the guy messing up the lines and kept looking at his hand.

"Alan I admire your pluck, as for your singing...that's a wonderful tie you're wearing. Next!" trying to put down the boy gently.

The next girl who was wearing pink and was standing behind the piano that Kelsi was playing, her singing was better than the first two. But what set Ms. Darbus off was the eye contact she kept making with her only which made her uncomfortable a bit.

"Uh, stop."

The next girl sang in a quite a strange way which was mostly in a high note of a voice, almost like she was going for the opera or something. As she sang, she went higher on the scale making her voice hard to hear and it was hurting people ears. At the end she only sang one high screeching note which made the audience, including Darbus covered their ears with their hands.

"Ah Cyndra, what courage to pursue a note that is not been accessed in the natural world. Bravo, uh Brava! Perhaps the spring musical." as Darbus uncovered her ears.

Next was a guy who just bounded onto the stage like a ballet dancer without even singing a word and it surprised everyone. He danced around the stage a bit and Darbus thought finally a good one but the dancer danced off to the right exit and a loud crash could be heard.

Then was an African American girl who took a deep breath like she was about to sing but just froze in her tracks and stared at Darbus.

"Thank you...Next." the teacher took a drink from her cup and waved the girl away.

Finally was another guy who came dancing on the stage but this time the person actually sang and was doing quite well. Darbus's face immediately lit up in joy and excitement and was smiling, thanking there was actually a good one out of the one she seen so far.

"It's hard to believe that I couldn't see, that you're always right there beside me. This feeling's like no other, I want you to know!" as the guy sang he started to dance towards the back of the stage and suddenly he just disappeared.

"My, that was just wonderful and finishing with a disappearing act." the teacher got up to clap.

"Um actually, someone left the trap door open." Kelsi interrupted as she stood up from the piano and looked over at the spot where the person disappeared too.

"Ugh, next!" Darbus stopped and sat back down dropping her pencil and groaned.

Back over at the entrance of the auditorium...

Troy was still hiding behind the janitor trolley and was so busy watching that he didn't even noticed that Ryan walked in from the front entrance. Ryan who came into the auditorium to watch the auditions was surprise to see Troy there hiding behind a mop and was wondering what the other boy was doing here.

"Troy?"

The sudden call of his name made the basketball star jumped a bit in surprise making him nearly topple over the cart.

"What are you doing here?"

"Uh hey Ryan. Shouldn't I be asking you that question? I thought that you'll be the first one to be down there with Sharpay." Troy asked and greeted awkwardly.

"I would if you hadn't forgot that the leading couple roles are gay and lesbian and I don't think anyone would want to audition with the school's fag."

"Oh right, that." Troy started to feel sorry a bit for the other boy.

"Why are you hiding behind a mop?" Ryan asked with the trolley that Troy was still holding onto.

Troy just forced a laugh, being a bit embarrassed as he pushed the cart away from him with his hand.

"Your friends don't know you're here, right?"

"Right."

Back with the auditions...

The auditions for the lead couples had started and we see two girls going for the lead female couple. The weird thing is that instead of singing, the two were reading song lines like poetry and both were doing this hippie like dance style. Starting from waving their hands in front of their faces then going into waving their arms to one side like a hula dance and rolling onto the ground and crawling like a cat, it made their entire act just weird. Darbus was just watching the entire thing weirdly as she toss her pencil onto the desk. Well Sharpay and Gabriella just turned and stared at one another before turning their attention back on stage, thinking 'Okay...'.

"Well...that was just...very disturbing, go see a counsellor. Next!"

"Wow, what talent people have at this school." Gabriella said to herself.

Next was a boy who was auditioning for lead male couple but he was all by himself and was carrying something.

"Uh, where is your partner?" asked Darbus but the boy just held up his hand in a 'just a moment' gesture.

Then he took the thing he was carrying and placed it on the piano and opened it revealing it was a laptop computer. Typing something in on the keyboard and then gestured to Kelsi to begin who didn't know what was going on so she started.

"It's hard to believe that I couldn't see, you're always right there beside me." the boy began to sing.

"Thought I was alone, with no one to hold." a computerized male voice sang out from the laptop and Darbus stopped them or him.

"When I asked for couple auditions, I was asking for a partner that happens to be alive. Next!"

Next was a girl who came out with a...bird cage with a parrot in it and she set the cage on the piano and she began.

"It's hard to believe that I couldn't see, you're always right there beside me." the girl began to sing.

"Thought I was alone, with no one to hold." the parrot squawked out.

"Heh, heh better then the last one but I was hoping for a partner that is human! You should try out for our school's talent show this year. Next!"

Back with Troy and Ryan...

"Uh, Ms. Darbus is a little...harsh." Troy commented as he watched.

"You have seen nothing yet." Ryan turned to the other, "The Wildcat superstar is afraid?"

"No, no, not afraid...I...just...scared." the basketball star was about to lie but instead he decide to tell the truth.

"Me too."

"What? You? How could that be? You and Sharpay had starred in all of our school's productions, how could you be scared?" Troy looked at the other boy with surprised expression.

"I already have enough people pick on me because I'm gay, I don't want to be stereo-typed even more because I decide to go for a gay role."

"And finally for the lead females roles we have Sharpay and...my how interesting...Gabriella Montez." the sudden shout from Ms. Darbus made both boys jumped a bit and quickly they grabbed the janitor cart and hid behind it.

"I think it might be useful for you to give us a sense of why we gathered in this hallowed hall."

Immediately Sharpay got up and head towards the stage followed by Gabriella who stood up slowly and was a bit nervous. In the back Ryan and Troy quickly sat down at a pair of seats near the entrance to watch as they were surprise that Gabriella was here and had signed up with Sharpay.

"What key?" Kelsi asked Sharpay as she got on the stage.

"I had a rehearsal pianist to do an arrangement."

"Oh."

Once both girls were on stage, Sharpay snapped her fingers and the curtains were drawn closed in front of them and they were given mikes.

"Isn't this a bit over doing it?" asked Gabi nervously as she remembers the song that they practice and how it was changed from the original.

"Listen, nothing is over doing it in show business. Now remember how we rehearsed it." Sharpay reassured her partner.

"But I only rehearsed it for one night."

"Don't worry, you'll be fine."

"I can't believe I'm doing this." Gabi groaned and slapped her hand over her face.

Then the music started to play the song that the students had auditions with, with a more hip hop beat to it and the curtains opened and the two began.

Sharpay:  
It's hard to believe,  
That I couldn't see

Both:  
You were always there,  
Beside me,  
Thought I was alone,  
With no one to hold,  
But you were always,  
Right beside me

Gabriella:  
This feeling's like no other

Both:  
I want you to know

(Ms. Darbus was moving to the tune of the song and couldn't believe what a great voice that Gabriella had. She watches merrily as the two did the dance routine to the song, well mostly Sharpay did it and Gabriella was doing it partly.)

Both:  
I've never had someone,  
That knows me like you do,  
The way you do,  
I've never had someone,  
As good for me as you,  
No one like you,  
So lonely before,  
I finally found,  
What I've been looking for

Gabriella:  
So good to been seen,  
So good to be heard

Both:  
Don't have to say a word

Sharpay:  
For so long I was lost,  
So good to be found

Both:  
I'm lovin' havin' you around

Sharpay:  
This feeling's like no other

Both:  
I want you to know

(In the back Troy and Ryan who was watching also couldn't believe what a great singing voice that Gabriella had and was surprised.)

Both:  
I've never had someone,  
That knows me like you do,  
The way you do,  
I've never had someone,  
As good for me as you,  
No one like you,  
So lonely before,  
I finally found,  
What I've been looking for

Once the song ended, Sharpay gave a look at everyone which had made them clapping to their performance. Breathing hardly a bit, both girls bowed to their audience and Darbus started to stand up as Troy and Ryan ducked behind the seats in the back.

"Well are there any last minute sign ups?" the teacher called out.

Back on stage...

We see everyone was starting to leave and as Sharpay started to leave, she was stopped by Kelsi.

"Oh! Actually if you do the part with that particular song, imagine it much slower..."

"If we do the part? Kelsi, my sod off sun time. I've been in 17 school productions and how many times have your composition been selected?" asked Sharpay

"This would be the first..." the composer replied slowly

"Which tells us what?"

"Ah, I need to write you more solos?"

"No, it tells us that you do not offer for direction, suggestion or commentary and you should be thankful that I'm here to let your music out of its current obscurity. Are we clear!" the drama queen started to advance on the girl pushing her back.

"Yes ma'am! I mean Sharpay."

"Nice talking to you." Sharpay laughed a bit and started to leave.

"Any last minute sign ups?" Ms. Darbus called out to the auditorium as Troy motioned to him and Ryan to leave.

"We should go." Troy whispered.

"No? Well then what a shame, it looks like I have to tell the principal that we will have to go to our back up musical since no one successfully tried out for the leading male couple." Darbus announced out.

"But Ms. Darbus..." Sharpay called out.

"Sorry. As I said before that if no one auditioned for the leading parts then we will have to cancel."

Sharpay sighed in disappointment and left the stage as Darbus turned off the desk lamp that was on the desk she was working at and started to leave and heads towards the main exit. Back with Troy and Ryan who was hiding back in the main entrance hall, Ryan who couldn't stand it anymore and he had to audition since he had starred in almost all shows and there was no way he was missing this one. Making up his decision and not caring anymore of other people's views, he walked out from his hiding spot.

"I like to audition, Ms. Darbus!" Ryan called out as Troy just looked at him and grabbed his own head and wondered what the other boy was doing with an unbelievable expression.

"Ryan? Where have you been all this time. I would have thought that you would be here on time for the auditions of all people. As you know time limit means something in the world of theatre young man. The individual auditions are long, long over there are simply no other pairs and besides you need a male partner to audition with you for the male leads. And I see that there is no one else with you, so that's that." making Ryan looked down sadly.

Troy who was still hiding had no idea what came over him so suddenly but there was no turning back now, since his mouth made the decision before he could think about it.

"I'll sing with him." the sudden announcement surprised both Darbus and Ryan as they turn to the entrance as Troy came walking around the corner with his right arm up.

"Troy Bolton...Didn't think a person of your social stature would come here to audition for these kinds of parts. Where is your sports posse? Or whatever it's called."

"Team...Uh but I'm here alone, actually I'm here to sing with him." Troy gestured to Ryan who he was standing beside now as Darbus walked towards them.

"Well yes...well we take these shows very seriously here at East High, I called for the pairs audition and you didn't respond and free period is now over. So Ryan maybe next time you should think about signing up earlier like you sister did." and the teacher started to leave.

"But, but, but..." the basketball player started.

"Perhaps the next musical." and Darbus left.

"Why did you volunteered?" Ryan turned to the other wondering.

"Well I was helping a friend in need." not sure what to answer so Troy gave the best one he could think of.

"You consider me as a friend?"

"Well yeah."

Back up on stage...

No one was left in the auditorium except for Kelsi was gathered up her music and stood up and was about to leave when she trip and fell, sending all her music sheet scattering to the floor. Seeing this Troy and Ryan sprinted up onto the stage and knelt down and help pick up the music sheets that were on the floor.

"So you're a composer? You wrote the song Sharpay and Gabriella just sang?" Troy asked Kelsi and the girl nodded.

"And the entire show? Well that very cool, I uh can't wait to hear the rest of the show." handing back the sheets of music to the girl and shook hands with her as all three stood up.

"So, why are you so afraid of Sharpay? I mean it is your show."

"Hey! That's my sister." Ryan elbowed him.

"I don't mean it as a bad kind of way." Troy kind of apologized to the boy.

"Anyhow sorry, Sharpay could be a bit demanding sometimes." the school's drama king turned to the girl and apologized for his sister's behaviour.

"Its alright, I kind of get that most of the time but the show being mine, it is?" Kelsi asked unsure of Troy's comment.

"Isn't the composer of the show, kind of like the play-maker in basketball."

"Play-maker?" the girl was still unsure.

"You know the one that makes everyone else look good. I mean without you there wouldn't be no show. You're the play maker here, Kelsi."

"I am?" Troy nodded at the girl in a yes.

"Do you want to hear how the duet suppose to sound? It was originally written for a guy and girl but it'll work in any pair along it is a couple." girl went back to the piano and sat down and placed the music in front of her as Troy and Ryan walked over and stood near her, next to one another.

Kelsi then started to play the song what it originally suppose to sound like, a soft, drawn out slow song and nodded at Troy to start singing the first part.

Troy:  
It's hard to believe,  
That I couldn't see,  
You were always there beside me

(As Troy started to sing, Ryan turned to him in surprise finding out what a great singing voice he has and smiled a bit as Kelsi nodded him to sing the next part.)

Ryan:  
Thought I was alone,  
With no one to hold

Both:  
But you were always right beside me,  
This feeling's like no other,  
I want you to know

(Both boys started to sing together in great harmony as they turned to one another and smiled as Troy started to get that warm butterflies in your stomach feeling again.)

Both:  
I've never had someone,  
That knows me like you do,  
The way you do,  
I've never had someone,  
As good for me as you,  
No one like you,  
So lonely before,  
I finally found,  
What I've been looking for

"Wow...that's nice." Troy commented as the song finished.

"Bolton, Evans, you have a callback just in case of any other last minute auditions. Kelsi, give them the duet from the second act. Work on it with them." Darbus called out to the three suddenly as she was back in the auditorium hearing the two sing and she left again.

"If you guys want to rehearse, I'm usually here during free period and after school even sometimes during biology class. You can come and rehearse at anytime or you can come to my house for breakfast, I have a piano we could rehearse there. After school before school whatever works, after basketball class..." Kelsi for one was very excited and handed the two each a copy of the song that they need to practice on.

Ryan for one was happy that he got the male leading part, well sort of and with Troy no less but Troy was totally confused at what just happen. Flipping the pages of the song, Troy just looked totally confused.

"What?"

0******************0

Anyways thanks for all the reviewers that pointed out the truce mistake at the end. I knew there was something wrong with the word but I didn't know what. So read and review please!

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	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

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Monday morning...

After a long weekend of waiting, the list of the people who made it in the musical was posted up which surprised most people who saw it. Sharpay and Gabriella, who was walking together down the hall where the cast list would've been posted up, stopped in their track when they saw it. Immediately both girls walked up to the list surprisingly and couldn't believe their eyes that the musical was still on. They quickly scanned their eyes over the list and saw two names that shocked them.

Under the listing for male couple leads were Troy Bolton and Ryan Evans followed by female couple leads Sharpay Evans and Gabriella Montez which both pairs were on callbacks.

"Wait a minute, when did Troy and Ryan audition? I didn't see them at all." wondered Gabi.

"Who cares at least they get to spend some time together and get to know one another better, and I hope that Troy gets his act together for Ryan's sake." Sharpay said off offhandedly.

Both girls looked at one another with a sly grin and quickly did a high five and shouted out yes which got people's attention in the hall around them. This includes Troy s team who happened to be nearby and walked over to the girls and wondered what was going on.

"Hey ladies is something wrong?" asked Chad.

Immediately Sharpay and Gabriella silenced themselves and slowly tried to make a get away from the boy before he notices the cast for the musical. But with fate has it, it was too late and Chad spotted the cast list and his best friend's name under male couple lead with none other than Ryan Evans.

"What?"

0******************0

Later that day at noon in the cafeteria...

We see Chad pacing back and forth with a basketball in his hand thinking what in the world was Troy doing, hoping this was all a joke but something was telling him otherwise. We see Zeke was pacing around as well and it looks like he is debating on something then suddenly deciding he began singing.

Zeke:  
You can bet,  
There's nothin' but net,  
When I am in a zone and on a roll,  
But I've got a confession,  
My own secret obsession,  
And it's making me lose control

Jocks:  
Everybody gather 'round

"Well if Troy can tell his secret then I can tell mine, I bake." Zeke confessed as the people gathered around him and was shocked.

"What?" Chad stated.

"I love to bake, strudels, scones and even apple pan-dowdy."

Jocks:  
Not another sound

"Someday I want to make the perfect cr me brulee." Zeke added.

Jocks:  
No, no, no, noooooooooooo,  
No, no, no,  
Stick to the stuff you know,  
If you wanna be cool,  
Follow one simple rule,  
Don't mess with the flow, no no,  
Stick to the status quo

(Immediately the group started to dance and then we come to a girl who you can say was big bodied sitting at a table of brainiacs.)

Martha Cox:  
Look at me,  
And what do you see,  
Intelligence beyond compare,  
But inside I am stirring,  
Something strange is occurring,  
It's a secret I need to share

Brainiacs:  
Open up, dig way down deep

"Hip hop is my passion, I love to pop and lop and jam and break." the girl stood up and did a few dance moves.

"Is that even legal?" a boy beside her asked.

Brainiacs:  
Not another peep

"Its just dancing, sometimes I think it is even cooler than homework." the girl stated.

Brainiacs:  
No, no, no, noooooooooooo,  
No, no, no,  
Stick to the stuff you know,  
It is better by far,  
To keep things as they are,  
Don't mess with the flow, no no,  
Stick to the status quo

(It was then the people at the brainiacs table started to stand up and dance and then we come to a table of punk dudes.)

Skaterdude:  
Listen well,  
I'm ready to tell,  
About a need that I cannot deny,  
Dude, there's no explanation,  
For this awesome sensation,  
But I'm ready to let it fly

Dudes and Dudettes:  
Speak your mind and you'll be heard

"Alright if Troy wants to be a singer than I'm coming clean, I play the cello." the dude confessed to his mates.

"Awesome! What is it?" a friend asked as the guys did motions with his two hands.

"A saw?"

"No dude! It s like a giant violin."

Dudes and Dudettes:  
Not another word

"Do you have to wear a costume?" the same guy asked the dude.

"Coat and tie." the skater-dude answered.

Dudes and Dudettes:  
No, no, no, noooooooooooo,  
No, no, no,  
Stick to the stuff you know,  
If you wanna be cool,  
Follow one simple rule,  
Don't mess with the flow, no no,  
Stick to the status quo

(Then that table of people started to dance and soon the entire cafeteria started on the dancing together.)

Everyone:  
No, no, no, noooooooooooo,  
No, no, no,  
Stick to the stuff you know,  
It is better by far,  
To keep things as they are,  
Don't mess with the flow, no no,  
Stick to the status quo

(As they continued with the singing and dancing, Gabriella walked into the lunchroom with a tray of fries with Taylor beside her. Then everyone stopped and looked at them.)

"Why is everyone staring at you?" Gabi asked Taylor.

"Not me, you." Taylor turned towards her friend.

"Because of the callbacks? I can't have people staring at me, I really can't."

(Then immediately everyone went back to their sing and dancing. A few moments later we see Sharpay and Ryan walking into the cafe and were surprised wondering why everyone was dancing and singing at lunch.)

Everyone:  
No, no, no, noooooooooooo,  
No, no, no,  
Stick to the stuff you know,  
If you wanna be cool,  
Follow one simple rule,  
Don't mess with the flow, no no,  
Stick to the status quo No, no, no, noooooooooooo,  
No, no, no,  
Stick to the stuff you know,  
It is better by far,  
To keep things as they are,  
Don't mess with the flow, no no,  
Stick to the status Stick to the status Stick to the status quo

As the song ended, Gabriella's lunch was knocked off and out of her tray as a student stood up and the fries went soaring up into the air and backwards. Unfortunately for the Evan siblings who were walking a good distance behind her was right in the way of the flying fries. Fortunately for Sharpay who saw it coming quickly ducked but Ryan was not so fortunate and got hit on his hat by the ketchup cover fries and they slid down onto his shirt.

"Oh Ryan! I'm so sorry!" Gabriella apologized when she saw where her lunch landed and immediately walked over to the boy and helps clean him up a bit.

"Its okay, I saw it and it wasn't your fault." the boy stated calmly as his friend tried to pick off the fries.

Sharpay of course stood up and tried to hold her laughter in as she looked at her brother and helped with the fries picking.

"Hey, these are pretty good." Ryan took one of the fries and popped it into his mouth and ate it.

During sometime at the end of the song that the students in the cafe had been singing, Troy had came in with his lunch and saw what happened and tried to go over to help but Chad stopped him.

"You're not going over there." and Chad immediately pulled his best friend away to their own table.

"What is going on here?" Darbus shouted out, no one knew when she came in.

"Oh it s nothing, just a little accident." Sharpay answered and Darbus saw the look on Ryan and gasped a bit.

"We're going to get him cleaned up a bit." and Sharpay grabbed her brother's arm and dragged him away with Gabriella following them.

Back over with Troy and Chad...

"What s up?" Troy asked.

"What s up? Oh lets see, um you missed free period work out on Friday to audition for some heinous musical with Ryan Evans no less."

"Is there something wrong trying to be friends with him?"

"No. But now people are confessing and yeah Zeke, Zeke is baking. Cr me Brulee." Chad grabbed the mentioned boy as he walked past them.

"Oh, what s that?" the basketball captain turned to the other boy interested.

"Oh, it s a creamy custard with a caramelized surface it s really satisfying." the baking boy answered.

"Shut up Zeke." Chad interrupted and Zeke walked away and Troy went to sit at their table.

"Look, can you see what is happening here man. Our team is coming apart because of your singing thing. Look, even the drama geeks and the brainiacs suddenly think they can talk to us. Look, the skater-dude are mingling. Suddenly people think they can do other stuff, stuff that not their stuff. They got you thinking about show tunes, when we've got a play off game next week." Chad stated as he pointed out the changes that started to happen to the student body.

Pushing a lunch tray away, the boy stood up and left Troy to his own thoughts.

0******************0

In the men's locker room...

We see Coach Bolton sitting in his office laid back with his feet on his desk, eating a sandwich and reading a newspaper article featuring his team. From the entrance of the locker room, in walked Ms. Darbus which was quite a surprised especially to the students inside taking showers and changing. As she walked down the hall towards the Coach's office, male student started to come out from every side in shock of seeing a female teacher in there.

"Alright Bolton, cards on the table right now." Darbus demanded as she walked into the office.

"Huh?" the coach confused.

"You're tweaked because I put your stars in detention and now you're getting even."

"What are you talking about Darbus?" the coach sat back up straight.

"Your all star son, turned up at my audition. Now...I give every student an even chance, which is a long and honourable tradition in the theatre something that you wouldn't understand. But if he is planning some sort of practical joke in my chapel of the arts..."

"Troy doesn't even sing." Bolton interrupted.

"Oh well, you're wrong about that but I will not allow my Twinkle Town musical to be made into farce."

"Twinkle Town?" the coach trying to hold back some laughter.

"See...I knew it! I knew it!" and she left in a huff.

0******************0

Later that afternoon...

We see Sharpay at her locker as she opened it up and started to grab some books for her next class and out around the corner came Zeke.

"Hey Sharpay, um I just thought Troy Bolton is going to be in your show..." Zeke started.

"Yeah so?" Sharpay answered looking at the boy annoyed.

"Well I just thought maybe you could watch me play ball sometime or something."

"I rather stick pins in my eyes." she chuckled.

"Wouldn't that be awful and uncomfortable?"

"Evaporate! Tall person!" the drama queen shouted and closed her locker and walked off.

"I bake! If that helps." the boy added.

0******************0

In the halls of the school...

We see Ryan opening his locker and putting his books away when a piece of paper fell out of the top shelf and dropped onto the floor. Ryan was only wearing a plain white t-shirt that was un-tuck with the bottom pulled over his pants and he wasn't wearing his hat either. Since his good clothes and hat was covered in oil and ketchup, they were ruined and he couldn't wear them for the rest of the afternoon. Picking up the note, Ryan opened it and realized it was from Troy telling him to meet somewhere. He was surprised and excited at the same time and smiled as he closed his locker and headed off to where Troy wanted to meet.

0******************0

Up on the roof...

Ryan was slowly walking up the stairs to the botanical gardens made by the science club which was unknown to him since he doesn't follow the other clubs activities was shocked and gasped at the beauty of the plants that was around him. Troy, who was standing at the top and leaning on the rail that over look the stairs, smiled when he saw the other boy coming and noticed what he was wearing. He actually looked good just wearing a t-shirt and no hat like that.

Troy didn't know why but it s like he needed to see the other boy to make sure he was alright. It s like everything now is based around Ryan and he kind of liked it and it somehow felt kind of right in his heart.

"Wow, it s like a jungle up here." Ryan laughed as he walked up to Troy and leaned onto the rail next to him.

"Yeah, just like that cafeteria." Troy stated.

"Where I just humiliated myself even more, aside from being gay."

"No, come on. Are you okay?" Troy asked concerned for the other boy a bit.

"Yeah, I'm fine except for feeling like a French fry, yeah."

Ryan then noticed that Troy was kind of staring at him for awhile and wondered what was wrong.

"Is something wrong with me?" Ryan asked looking at himself.

"What? No, no, I just...thought...that you look good like that with only a t-shirt and no hat." the basketball star awkwardly answered as he blushed a bit.

"Oh really?" the other boy's face lit up a bit and redden from the complement.

"Yeah..."

Then both boys fell silent a bit until Ryan decided to break the silence between them.

"So...is this your private hideout."

"Yeah...thanks to the science club which means my buddies doesn't even know it exists." Troy was glad for the change of subject.

"You pretty much have the school wired, don't you Troy?"

"Well you have to be, when you're someone like me."

"I'm sure it s tricky to be the coach's son."

"Well, he makes me practice a little harder, I guess. I don't know what he's going to say when he finds out about the singing." Troy confessed.

"Do you regret it?"

"No..."

"You worried then?"

"My parent's friends are always saying 'your son is the basketball guy, you must be so...proud'. Sometimes I don't want to be the basketball guy; I just want to be a guy you know." Troy thinking seriously.

"I saw the way you treated Kelsi at the audition last Friday, do your friends know that guy." Ryan asked and walked over to the bench that was up in the gardens and sat down.

"To them I'm the play-maker dude."

"Then they don't know enough about you, Troy. Like people don't know enough about me. The school just sees me as the school's fag, the guy who is gay, and the freak. When I started to sing with you that day I just felt normal for once like being gay isn't a big deal." Ryan intertwines his hand together and placed them on his lap and looked down at them sadly.

"And you are normal; it s just the other people at this school who are the freaks." Troy grinned as he tried to cheer up the other boy as he walked over and sat down beside him on the bench and Ryan just laughed a bit.

"Do you remember in Kindergarten how you meet a kid and know nothing about them but 10 seconds later you're playing like you're best friends? Because you don't have to be anything but yourself?" the drama king started as he turned and looked up at Troy.

"Yeah."

"When I started to sing with you it felt like that."

"Well uh, I never thought about singing. That s for sure." Troy swallowed.

"So do you still want to do the callbacks?"

"Do you?"

"Yeah..."

"Then I do too; just call me freaky callback boy."

"I never actually realized it but you're a cool guy Troy but not for the reasons that your friends think and thanks for showing me your top secret hiding place. Like Kindergarten." Ryan smiled at Troy gratefully for sharing this with him which in turned the other smiled back.

Then suddenly the bell rang and both boys quickly looked at one another and immediately Troy got up and grabbed Ryan's hand and pulled the boy off the bench. He dragged the other along behind him and showed him to the stairs first and at all the same time; Ryan felt a spark and blushed at the sudden contact. He couldn't believe that his crush was actually touching and holding his hand as he was dragged along.

Troy of course noticed that he was holding the other boy's hand but was too busy and focused on getting to class that he didn't mind. In fact to him it was weird but it felt somehow right in his heart.

'Maybe I do like him.' Troy thought as they headed downstairs.

0******************0

I want to thank all the reviewers for the support so far. So read and review please! If you want this story to continue then I need reviews! or I'll think that readers out there don't like this fic at all.

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	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

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During the entire week...

As the days of the week went by since the callbacks postings, Troy, Ryan, Sharpay and Gabriella were working hard practising their songs on their own individual time since Troy and Gabriella had their school activities to do as well. Kelsi was working hard as well, practising and perfecting the songs that she wrote and would be playing on piano most of her time in the school's music room.

"We're soarin', flying..."

"But your faith, it gives me strength, strength to believe, we're breakin' free."

"Creating space between us, 'til we're separate hearts."

We see Troy practising in his free time at school in a empty locked stairway that barely no one would pass by while Ryan would practice most of his time at home in his room. While Sharpay and Gabriella would practice their duet on Gabi's schedule in a private studio that Sharpay had booked for them.

Soon both Troy and Ryan started to rehearse the song they were given separately with Kelsi in the school's music room and they were having fun. Especially Troy who took a bass drum stick and used it as a mike during his rehearsal while moving around the room.

"There's not a star in heaven, that we can't reach."

0******************0

Near the end of the week...

The Wildcats were having their after school practice for the upcoming championship game and the coach was having them do passes to each other in a zigzag formation.

"Let s go guys! Make it sharp to the chest! To the chest! Come on pop it! Come on guys step with it! Let s go! Come on move it! Let s go! Come on guys focus! Focus! Get your head in the game! Move it!" the coach shouted out to his team as he walked back and forth watching them as the players passed the ball to each other.

Noticing his son wasn't amoung his basketball team, the coach decided to ask one of the team mates.

"Have you seen Troy?" the coach stopped the passing on Jason wondering where his son was and stared at the boy.

"N-no coach." Jason replied meekly and the coach just blew his whistle to have them continue passing.

0******************0

While in the auditorium...

There we see Troy and Ryan actually helping out for the musical by making the props that were needed which was strange for others to see them there since Troy spends most of his time at this time in the gym. For Ryan that s something you don't see everyday as well but to him spending time with the basketball star, he will take any chance he could get.

Ryan was fixing up a background drop while he was moving his body to the beat of the song he was going to perform with Troy but he wasn't doing much work since he had his head turned towards the other boy and was smiling at the other as he moved to the beat in his head.

Troy was on one side of the stage was painting what seems to be a wooden crate box kneeling on one knee while moving his entire body to some sort of beat in his head. He didn't notice but he too was taking his time looking at the other boy and was smiling back when he saw Ryan smiled at him. Then closing his eyes, Troy moved his body to the imaginative beat even more swaying his head side to side as well as his shoulders and arms.

Mrs. Darbus of course kind of noticed the changes in the two boys as she walked up near Troy and observed them a bit. The basketball captain noticed the teacher and immediately stopped moving and continued to paint. Once Darbus was gone Troy continued with his body moving to beat as he continued to smile at Ryan.

0******************0

Later back in the gym...

Practice was just over and the coach blew his whistle, so the team started to leave the court and headed towards the locker room to shower and change.

"Good guys! Hit the showers!"

As the team started to head for the showers that was when Troy started to run into the gym with his uniform on and on to the court and as Chad left, he passed the ball to his friend.

"I uh, think I'll stay awhile...work in some free throws." Troy didn't know what to say since he missed practice.

"Well since you missed practice, I think your team deserves a little effort from you today." and the coach walked off.

The team captain sighed and began doing some free throws and as he did, Gabriella and Ryan were walking towards him from the other side of the gym doors.

"Wow...so this is your real stage." stated Gabi.

"What are you guys doing here?" Troy turned in surprise seeing the other two.

"Well I've been at this school for awhile and I didn't get to see the gym yet. So I asked Ryan to give me a tour and now that I have seen it I better go, I have a Scholastic Decathlon team meeting that I have to get to." and Gabi waved goodbye and left the boys alone in the gym.

"Here, wanna try?" Troy lifted the ball in one hand, offering it to Ryan.

"Uh no thanks, I suck remember?" the blond boy looked at him as if he had some sort of memory loss.

"Come on just try, you should have some fun besides doing musicals."

"Fine." sighing Ryan walked over to Troy.

Taking the basketball from the other boy's hand, he stood in front of the hoop at a shooting distance and let it go. The ball went soaring up into the air in an arch and went towards the hoop but it went too high and hit the backboard. The ball wasn't anywhere near the hoop and it bounced back towards the two boys.

"Wow, you do suck." Troy looking up at the hoop with his hands on his hips.

"See!" Ryan whined, embarrassed and started to move away from the net.

"Look, all you need is some pointers and some practice. Come here."

Troy who had the ball under one of his arms walked to the front of the net where Ryan was standing moments before and with his free hand, he motioned to the other boy to come to him.

"Uh no thanks, that are really fine Troy I don't want to waste your time." the Evans boy tried to make some sort of excuse.

"You're not wasting my time, now come here." Troy sighed.

"No that fine."

"Ryan, come here." the athelete coaxed.

"Look you don't..."

"Come here..."

"But, but, but..."

"Ryan..." Troy stood there and started to lose his patience.

The drama king thought for a moment before he decided to just go for it, with his heart beating quite fast he walked over to the basketball team captain. Once Ryan was next to Troy, the captain took hold of the boy's shoulders and turned the boy so he was in front facing the net. Then handing the ball over which Ryan took, standing behind him Troy grabbed hold of the other boy's arms and started to put them in the right shooting position.

"Okay here's what you should be doing when you're trying to shoot a basket. Taking your arms and holding the ball like this, when you throw you throw like this. Also you when you bend your knees they should be like this..."

Troy started to explain as he did the movements with the boy's arms and leg which he was grabbing a hold of, making Ryan blushing the entire time. After the explanation and a few pointers they shot a basket together with Troy arms underneath and still touching Ryan arm and the ball went in.

"Now you try." the basketball star letting go of the boy's arms.

The drama king did what he was instructed with and this time the ball actually went in the net and he was happy that he scored a basket for the first time. Smiling not believing that he made a basket, Ryan turned back around towards Troy grinning.

"Hey not bad, if you keep practising you may even make it in the team next year." Troy sprinted over to the ball and grabbed it as it bounced off the floor.

"I've been rehearsing with Kelsi." Ryan said suddenly.

"Me too and um by the way, uh I missed practice. So if I get kicked off the team it should be on your conscience."

"Hey! I wasn't the one who told you..." not believing that Troy was blaming him.

"Ryan...chill." the jock was smiling, telling the other boy that he was just joking.

Ryan on the other hand couldn't believe he fell for it and immediately grabbed the ball from Troy's hand and started to back away from him.

"Hey that s travelling, no that s really bad travelling..." immediately the star player started to chase after the other boy as Ryan was trying to dodge him.

Eventually Troy caught the other boy when he was turning around wrapping his arms around Ryan from the back and lifted him up a bit, making the said boy giggling.

"Hey! Sorry but this is a closed practice." Coach Bolton suddenly shouted out as he walked into the gym making the two boys stop and Troy letting go of Ryan.

"Dad...come on, practice is over."

"Until the last player leaves the gym, team rule." the coach stated as he walked up to the boys.

"Well I'm sorry sir." Ryan apologized.

"Um...dad this is Ryan Evans which I hope you know." the jock introduced his friend and Ryan held out his hand to shake.

"Ah your detention buddy."

"I'll see you later Troy and nice seeing you Coach Bolton." feeling like he wasn't liked by the coach, Ryan handed the ball back to Troy and started to leave the gym.

"As well Mr. Evans." as both father and son watched the boy took off.

"Dad, detention was my fault not his." Troy turned back to his father.

"You haven't missed practice in three years, that guy comes along..."

"That guy was named Ryan...he's a good guy."

"Well helping you miss practice doesn't make him a good guy, not in my book or your team."

"Dad! He's not a problem, he's just a friend." the jock couldn't believe that his dad was blaming Ryan for his actions.

"But you're not just anybody Troy! You're the team leader...what you do effects not only the team but the entire school. Without you completely focused we're not going to win next week, the championship game don't come along all the time its something special." trying to convince his son.

"Well uh a lot of things are special dad."

"But you're the play-maker, not a singer right?"

"Did you ever think that maybe I could be both?"

Upset Troy just toss the ball away and left the court and out of the gym where the whole team was listening by the doors to the conversation that the two had.

"What? Let s go." Chad stated and the team kind of followed their captain.

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Thursday...

We see Troy and Chad walking down one of the many aisle of the library at their school with Chad holding a basketball like always going through each the sections they were passing looking for something. More like Troy was the only one looking for something and Chad was just there to question his buddy which was getting a bit annoying at that time.

"Alright...what s going on between you and Ryan?" Chad stated.

"Nothing going on between us alright." Troy getting annoyed a bit.

"Its not something having to do with him being gay is it? Do you want to tell me something?"

"It s nothing alright!" the bruenette exclaimed quietly.

"Then why would you suddenly want to be in a musical?"

"Look...I just did it, who cares?" stopping Troy turned to the shelf next to him to check out a book.

"Who cares? Look how could you spoil your best friend?" Chad grabbed his friend's shoulder and turned him back around.

"Quiet in here Mr. Danforth." the librarian came down the aisle to quiet them.

"It s him Ms. Falsa not me." Chad blaming Troy and the librarian turned around and walked away.

"Look...you're a hoop dude, not a musical singer person. Have you ever seen Michael Crawford on a cereal box?" the two continued down the aisle.

"Who's Michael Crawford?" Troy wonder what the hell was his friend talking about as they turned a corner.

"Exactly my point! He was the phantom of the opera on Broadway. Now my mom, she seen that musical 27 times and she puts Michael Crawford's picture in our refrigerator. Not on it, in it. So my point is if you play basketball, you're going to end up on the cereal box. If you sing in musicals, you're going to end up in my mom's refrigerator." Chad telling him.

"Why would she put his picture in her refrigerator." the captain asked confused.

"One of her crazy diet ideas...look I don't have to understand the female mind Troy."

Then suddenly the librarian came out of no where and surprises them by coming around the other corner from the other side of the book shelf glaring at them to stop talking so loud. Immediately the two stopped talking and headed towards a free empty desk near the middle of the open room and sat down with Troy who had a book in his hand which he grabbed from the shelf they were at.

"How do you expect the rest of us be focused on our game, if you're off somewhere in leotards singing Twinkle Town."

"No one said anything about leotards." Troy had the book opened with a pencil in hand and paper in front of him.

"Not yet my friend but just you wait. Look we need you captain, big time." Chad annoying Troy some more.

"Mr. Danforth..." the librarian came up to them again.

"I tried to tell him Ms. Falsa...I really tried." while Troy just sat there thinking.

0******************0

Sometime later...

It was after school and Chad, Zeke and Jason walked right into the science lab and headed towards where Taylor was, near the back of the room. Unfortunately for them, Sharpay happens to be walking by and saw them and wondering what were they doing.

"Something isn't right." she muttered to herself and looked into the classroom.

Over to the guys...

"Hey...we need to talk." Chad pointed towards himself and Taylor.

"Go."

Back over to Sharpay at the door...

"I wonder what are they planning...I hope they're not thinking about ruining my musical or getting in the way between Ryan and Troy. If they are, they got another thing coming to them." she narrowed her eyes as she watched the two talk and decided to keep a close eye on them before turning around and walked away.

Back with the other two...

"Do you really think that s really going to work?" Taylor asked with the Scholastic Decathlon team around her.

"It s the only way to save Troy and Gabriella from themselves. You and I both know that the main problem here is the Evans and we need to get rid of them. So we're on?" Chad stated.

"Yeah I do, so yeah." the smart girl agreed.

"Good...so uh we start tomorrow then."

"Okay the first thing."

"Nice, lets go." Chad turned to his two friends and started to leave.

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Thanks to all the reviewers so far. So read and review please! If you want this story to continue then I need reviews!

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	7. Chapter 7

Note:

For those with reviews asking to continue on this story since it has been over 5 years since I updated. Back then there wasn't much reviews on this, so I lost inspiration in continuing this and wasn't inspired to finish this. But since that time, people still read this with reviews in wanting me to continue this so I finally decided to finish this no matter what. Which I really hope it happens but I will try, so thanks for all of your support.

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Chapter 7

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Friday morning...

We see Chad coming out from behind the statue that stands in front of the school's main front doors waiting for his accomplice. Then we see Taylor walking up the the steps that lead to the school and Chad spotted her and motioned her to come to him. At that time the warning bell rang and once Taylor got to him, Chad started to discuss their plans.

"Okay my watch is 7:45 Mountain standard time, are we synced?" the boy looked at his watch.

"Whatever..."

"Alright then we are going for our lunch period at exactly 12:05..." acting like some secret agent as Chad quickly glanced around them.

"Yes Chad, we are a go...but we are not Troy's agents...okay?" Taylor handed over a laptop to the boy.

"I can dream, can't I?" Chad stated as the girl walked away and soon after he did too.

0******************0

At lunch...

The bell for lunch rang exactly at 12:05 where students of the school are now heading towards the cafeteria and outside for their lunch.

We see Troy walking down the hall of the empty boy's locker room since his team told him that they are having a team meeting. As he walked, he looked into each locker section until he found the one where his entire team was in. To his surprise the team was standing around what seems to be a display table of the school's basketball trophies and pictures.

"Spider Bill McTreem...class of 72, he won the MVP league champion game." Chad held up a black and white picture of a basketball player and was pointing to it.

"Sam Neddler...class of 02, also known as Sammie Slammer Jammer. Captain MVP of the league championship team." Zeke who stood up next with another picture.

"The Thunder Clap..." Jason introduce another picture as the team did a quick clap.

"Pat Paddon '95 led the Wild Cats back to back city championships, a legend."

"Yes legends one and all...but do you think that any of these Wild Cats legends became legends by getting involved in musical auditions? Just a week before the league championships?" Chad continue.

First Troy was totally confused about whats going on but now he was getting it to where this was all about.

"Get your head in the game!" the entire team stated.

"No...these Wild Cats legends became legends because they never took their eyes off the prize." Chad continued on while Troy couldn't believe that his team was doing this.

"Get your head in the game!" the team stated again.

"Now...who was the first sophomore ever to make starting varsity." Chad continued.

"TROY!" the team shouted.

"So who voted him for our team captain this year."

"US!"

"And who are going to get their sorry butts kick in next Friday's championships game if Troy were to audition."

"We are."

"Guys come on, there are 12 people on this team not just me." it was finally Troy's turn to talk.

"Just 12? Oh no. I think you're forgetting about one very important 13th member of our squad." Chad took a picture from another team member and handed it face down to Troy.

"My dad..." turning the picture over to look at it.

"Yes Troy, Wild Cat basketball champion class of 1981. Champion, father and now coach...its a winning tradition like no other..."

0******************0

At the same time...

Sharpay wearing her usual expensive pink theme outfits was walking down an empty hall and was going to get some lunch when Taylor walked out from an empty classroom right in front of her. Then the students of the Scholastic Decathlon team surrounded Sharpay and two of them grabbed hold of her arms and hustled them into the empty classroom and closed the door.

"Hey! Get your hands off of me! This is kidnapping you know! I know a lot of people in high places! You don't want to mess with me!" Sharpay shouted as she was dragged further into the room.

As she looked around the room which happens to be one of the science rooms in the school but what surprised was that Ryan was there, sitting on a stool with two of the male members of the Scholastic Decathlon team holding him down on the seat with their hand upon each of his shoulders. Ryan was wearing something different then usual instead of his normal dramatic dress wear, instead he was wearing a pair of blue jeans with a white untuck t-shirt and a blue pattern dress shirt on top that was also untuck as well unbuttoned. The biggest noticeable difference was he didn't wore one of his hats and had the sleeves of the dress shirt rolled up a bit. It scared his sister that morning a bit but he said he want to try something different than the usual today and people have been staring at him all morning.

"Hi Sharpay." Ryan waved at bit nervously.

"Ryan! What are you doing here? They kidnapped you too?" as the drama queen was force to sit on another stool near her brother.

"Yeah, sort of..."

"Alright, what do you want?" Sharpay crossed her arms and looked at Taylor with annoyance.

"Well we 'invited' you here today to discuss something." stated Taylor.

"Which is?" the female Evans was getting impatient.

"You are diminishing our chances at winning the Scholastic Decathlon this year!" the team leader stated.

"Huh?"

"I'm talking about Gabriella!" Taylor sighed.

"What about her?"

"As you know very well yourself how smart she is, so she is the one that will be winning it for us this year."

"And what does that got to do with us?" Sharpay gesturing to herself and Ryan.

"Because if it wasn't for you, she wouldn't be spending half of her time singing when she could use it to study." Taylor pointed out.

"Look I didn't force her to do the musical with me, I just asked her and she said yes. So you can't just blame it all on me." the drama queen replied.

"No but what you don't understand is that she and us are on the same path, the path of the mind, the path that we're on, ours the path that brought these people." Taylor answered as she walked over to the turned on laptop that was sitting on the table, opened and facing the Evan siblings.

"Eleanor Roosevelt, Frida Kahlo, Sandra Day O'Conner, Madam Corinne, Jane Goodall, Oprah Winfrey and so many others who in the world reveres." the African-American girl stated out in amazement as she showed a power-point presentation of famous ladies in history.

"I don't even know who the heck, over half of these people are! Just get to the point." the long hair blonde shouted, throwing her hands up.

"The point is that one day Gabriella might become a famous person like these ladies here and by doing this musical it might destroy her chance of becoming one."

"Okay but why am I here?" Ryan finally spoke up.

"She's your friend is she not? And as her friend, you don't want to be the one responsible because for your own selfish needs, destroying her bright future now do you?" Taylor gave Ryan an intense look.

"No, I guess not..." the male blond answered in a low voice, looking down at the ground.

"Besides the side of musicals and the performing arts are not as important as our side, the side of education and accomplishment is the future of civilization. This is the side where she belongs." the leader stood proudly with her team standing right beside her.

"I heard enough of this. Look Ms. Brainiac, if you really want her to spend all her time with your team then you should go and talk to her about it instead of coming to me! Come on Ryan, we're getting out of here!" Sharpay forced herself up and started to head for the door.

"Actually we have something else to talk about with your brother."

"Oh, no you don't." the girl Evans turn back towards them.

"Sharpay, its okay..." Ryan tried to calm his sister.

"But Ryan..."

"I want to hear what they have to say, just go on ahead without me."

"Fine, but I'm watching you!" Sharpay pointed her finger at Taylor and glared before she walked out of the door.

'Well that sort of didn't work, time for plan B.' Taylor thought as she turned to the other Evans.

"So what is it?" Ryan faced Taylor.

"Look Ryan, even though we're not friends but I don't want to see you get hurt." the girl sighed.

"What do you mean?" the boy was confused.

"From lowly neanderthal and cro-magnon, to early warrior and medieval knights, all leading up to..." Taylor started another slide show on her the laptop with a picture of an evolution kind of chart.

"Lunk head basketball man." one of Taylor's male teammates held up a poster which unrolled which she pointed at and it showed a pictured of a basketball player doing a slam dunk but with Troy's smiling face pasted on top on the original picture, which the blond laughed a bit in the cuteness of the picture.

"Um can I keep that when we're done?" Ryan asked sheepishly.

"As I was saying...Our culture worshipped our aggressor throughout the ages and we end up with spoiled, overpaid, boneheaded athletes who contribute little to civilization other than slam-dunks and touchdowns. That is the inevitable world of Troy Bolton."

"Okay..." the boy wasn't sure where this was heading.

"Ryan, you and Troy Bolton are from two different worlds, you're a performer and he's...something else. You should stop now from getting too close to him, or he'll hurt you like everyone else. Do you really think, he really cares about you?"

0******************0

Back in the locker room...

"Guys...if you don't know that I'll put 110% of my guts into that game, then you don't know me." Troy told his team.

"Look we just thought..." Chad started.

"I'll tell what I thought...I thought that you're my friends, win together lose together team mates."

"But suddenly Ryan...and the singing..."

Unknown to Troy that they had a laptop with them and Chad slowly opened it up as another team mate fixed up a web-cam on top pointing towards their captain.

"Man...I'm for the team, I'm always been for the team...he's just a friend. Alright the singing thing is nothing...its just a way to keep my nerves down, I don't know it means nothing to me. Your my guys and this is our team. Ryan is not important...I'll forget about him...I'll forget the audition and we'll go out and get that championship, everyone happy now." unknown to Troy that his friends were recording the entire thing.

0******************0

Back in the Science room...

"If you don't believe me, I'll show you." Taylor pressed a button on her remote and a video of Troy in the locker-room started to play.

"Alright the singing thing is nothing...its just a way to keep my nerves down, I don't know it means nothing to me. Your my guys and this is our team. Ryan is not important...I'll forget about him...I'll forget the audition and we'll go out and get that championship, everyone happy now."

Ryan just stared sadly at the screen as he felt like a knife was stabbed into his heart, twisted and ripped out and his eyes started to water like he was about to cry when he heard those words coming from Troy's mouth.

"Behold lunk head basketball man." the girl gestured at the screen.

A few tears started to slowly slide down the blond's face.

"I think we should leave you to think things over a bit." as the decathlon team leave the room followed by their leader.

Ryan just sat thinking to himself how could he be so stupid think that Troy would be different from the others or even have a chance with, he should blame himself for being so naive. Suddenly the boy started to hear chanting of the Wildcats coming from outside, so he got up and walked over the classroom windows and looked down towards the front of the school. The front was crowd with people including the basketball team, school cheerleaders and the band all dancing and chanting the Wildcats song. Even Troy was down there in the middle of it being carried on the shoulders of two of his teammate as they danced and moved around the fountain. Ryan just turned away from the scene in sadness and leaned against the counter with his arms against the edge that was in front of the window in thought and started to sing.

It's funny when you find yourself,  
Looking from the outside,  
I'm standing here,  
But all I want is to be over there,  
Why did I let myself believe,  
Miracles could happen,  
'Cause now I have to pretend,  
That I don't really care

(The blond pushed himself away from the counter and started to walk towards the door, out of the classroom and into the empty hallway of lockers of school and started to walk down to the other end.)

I thought you were my fairytale,  
My dream when I'm not sleeping,  
A Wish upon a star that's coming true,  
But everyone else could tell,  
That I confused my feelings with the truth,  
When there was me and you

(He ended up at the top balcony of a set of stairs that looked over down to the bottom floor of the school and walked along it as his left hand glided across the white smooth railing. Then stopping in the middle, he turned around and leaned back against the railing with his arms resting on the top and rested there a bit.)

I swore I knew the melody, That I heard you singing,  
And when you smiled,  
You made me feel,  
Like I could sing along,  
But then you went and change the words,  
Now my heart is empty,  
I'm only left with used-to-be's,  
And once upon a song

(As Ryan started the second chorus he started to walk down the sets of stairs that was connect to the balcony he was standing at before towards the bottom floor of the school.)

I know you're not a fairytale,  
And dreams are meant for sleeping,  
And wishes upon a star,  
Just don't come true,  
'Cause now even I can tell,  
That I confused my feeling with the truth,  
Because I like the view,  
When there was me and you

(He ended up in another empty hallway of lockers on the bottom floor of the school where he walked past a wall mural of the Wildcats basketball team with enlarge photos of the team players in different action positions with Troy right smack in the centre.)

I can't believe that I could be so blind,  
It's like you're floating,  
While I was falling,  
And I didn't mind,  
Because I like the view,  
I thought you felt it too,  
When there was me and you

Finally walking down another empty near where his locker was as he finished his song and turned a corner when students started to fill the halls once again since lunch was almost over. Ryan opened his locker sadly and started getting his books and stuff for his next class. At that exact same time Troy came weaving through the student body and headed towards the blond, and when he got there he leaned against the locker next to Ryan's with his left arm up with his other hand in his jean's pocket. Noticing the change of style of Ryan's clothes but decided to not mention anything about them besides he looks good in them, instead of his usual.

"Hey, how you're doing?" the the brunette asked with a smile.

But Ryan just stared into his locker not looking at the other boy as he greeted him.

"Look there's something I want to talk to you about." the school basketball star continued not noticing the change in the other boy.

"And here it is. I know what its like to carry a load with your friends, I get it. You got your boys Troy its okay, so we're good." Ryan finally turned around to face the other acting as normal as he could even though he was still hurting inside and put a small smile on.

"Good about what? I was going to talk to you about the callbacks."

"I don't want to do the callbacks either." the blond continued still putting on a fake smile, "I mean who we're trying to kid, you got your team to worry about and I got no one except my sister. I'll go back doing the school musicals with Sharpay and you win the championships. Its where we belong."

"Go Wildcats." as the blond pulled out the music piece that they suppose to be rehearsing with and handed it to Troy.

"But I..." the brunette started but was interrupted.

"Me neither." and the male Evans closed his locker and walked around behind the athlete and down the hall.

"Ryan?" Troy just stood there for a moment before turning around wondering what's going on with the other boy as he watched him disappear into the crowd of students.

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Thanks to all the reviewers so far. So read and review please! If you want this story to continue then I need reviews!

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	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

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After school...

On the outside basketball courts near the track and field courses where the school's football field is, we see the Wildcats basketball team practising their techniques while having a bit of fun. During that time their captain, Troy arrived walking onto the court where the team was practising but was distracted and totally confused on what happened with Ryan to make him act like that earlier. Seeing their captain walking onto the court, Chad stopped what he was doing and sprinted up to his friend with the ball in his hand.

"Hey! Captain." Chad smiled holding the ball out in his hand waiting for Troy to take it.

Troy at the time was not in the mood for practice or basketball and was totally frustrated, ignoring his best friend the basketball team captain decided to go for a run instead to let out some steam. The frizzle hair boy wondered whats going on as the other team members walked up to him from behind asking whats going on.

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During the weekend...

We see Troy at home in his backyard where there was a basketball court and it was late in the afternoon and the captain was currently practising his shooting baskets skills. His mind was still on the events that happened on Friday and couldn't stop thinking about Ryan and he wasn't focusing on what he was doing at the moment which made him miss every basket he tried to make and was getting more and more frustrated by the moment.

During that time Coach Bolton who decided to check on his son's progress and opened the full glass pane door leading to the backyard where Troy was at the moment and saw what was happening. Noticing the sudden change in his son, the coach was getting worried and was thinking what could had happened that could affect Troy so drastically and wondering if it had anything to do with Ryan.

When Troy have had enough with his misses he slammed the ball that he was holding at the side fence and walked over to the grass on the outer edge of the court and just dropped on to his back and decided to take a rest. The coach had watched enough and decided to go back inside and closed the door behind him and hope that whatever is troubling his son, that he would come to him to talk about it but he was pretty sure that he knew what it was about. Looks like its time to prepare himself for the big life altering conversation that his son is going to talk to him about pretty soon, he hoped.

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At the Montez residence...

We see Gabriella sitting on her bed in her room with a textbook open to a page and was reviewing and studying for the upcoming Scholastic Decathlon competition at her school. As she flipped to the next page, the sound of a ring tone echoed through the room. Looking over to her night stand, the girl picked up her mobile phone and looked at the screen. The name Ryan appeared on the caller ID and she answered it.

"Hey Ryan, whats up?" Gabriella answered while still looking at her book.

"Hi Gabi, nothing much except that I am calling to tell you that I won't be going to the call back auditions. So you don't need to spend your time practising with Sharpay since the musical won't go through." Ryan said like it was nothing and tried to sound normal.

"Hold on a minute, go back a second. Did you just say that you're not going to the call backs?" the girl immediately put down her book and focused on her friend at the moment.

"Yeah, I did." the drama king sighed.

"But why?"

"Look, you have your Scholastic Decathlon coming up and Troy has his championship game. You guys should be focusing on those which are important to you then wasting time on this school's musical which probably won't even happen." the blond tried to reason.

"Ryan, you don't need to worry about my Scholastic Decathlon I got it covered and the musical isn't a waste of time besides I'm started to have fun with the singing. Did something happen between you and Troy?" Gabriella asked trying to coax something out of her friend.

"Nothing happened between us, we both agreed that he needs to focus on the championship game and you on your decathlon alright." the male Evans lied.

"What does Sharpay has to say about this?"

"Don't worry, I'll talk to my sister. I gotta go, see you at school." and Ryan hanged up.

"But Ryan wait!" Gabriella tried to stop the boy from hanging up on her but it was too late.

Looking at her phone wondering what was going on with Ryan, she immediate tried to call back but he didn't pick up. After trying a couple of times that night, she finally decided to give up and hope she would get why the boy suddenly quit like that on Monday.

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On Monday...

It was lunch time at the school and the cafeteria was packed with students, we see the basketball team captain walking in with a lunch bag in one hand and a carton of milk in the other. At the same time on the other side of the room Ryan was walking in with his own lunch filled tray with Gabriella following him with her lunch filled tray trying to get out of him the reason why the boy decided not to go to the callbacks. Unlike Friday where the first time he dressed in casual clothes, the blond boy went back to his usual dressing style with his dress shirt and pants along with one of his hats.

The two boys eventually bumped into each other accidentally in the middle of the room and just stood there staring at one another for a moment before Ryan turned his head away as Troy was about to say something to him but was ignored and kept on walking. Gabriella of course saw the exchange between the two boys and just looked at the basketball player with this 'whats going on with you two' look. Troy of course just gave her a confused 'I don't know whats going on' gesture back and the girl just sighed and kept following her friend.

By that time Ryan was already sitting at an empty table looking down at his tray with a sad empty look, since no one wants to sit with or near him Gabriella just walked over and sat down next to him. Of course the girl tried to start up another conversation with the drama king and continued trying to pry out of him on what happened that changed the boy's mind on the callbacks but he just replies that it was nothing.

Troy just decided to walk on with a defeated expression as his friend and team mate Chad spotted him and motioned him to come over and sit with him and the rest of the team. The team captain felt like he just wanted to be alone for awhile and ignored his best friend and walked up and out the set of stairs that was in the lunchroom.

Taylor who was in the cafeteria as well saw the entire exchange and started to feel bad on what she did, even Ryan wasn't her friend he was Gabriella's and she shouldn't have done that to her friend's friend just for her own benefit. She turned to Chad who was currently also looking at her at the moment and they both stood up and walked towards one another with a bit of guilt on their faces and moved to the side to talk. At the same time Gabriella had given up on talking to Ryan and looked towards where Taylor and Chad was and saw them talking which kind of surprised her since its not everyday you see those two talking to one another and was wondering what were they discussing.

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Up on the school roof...

Troy was sitting on one of the benches in the science club's botanical garden looking over the scenery before him and along with his thoughts trying to figuring out what was going on with the male Evans. As he sat there thinking Chad, Zeke and Jason came sprinting up the stairs leading to the garden and found their team captain and friend and walked up to him.

"Hey." greeted Chad, which surprised Troy a bit as he turned seeing his friends up in the gardens.

"We just had another team meeting." the frizzed hair boy gestured to the other two behind him.

"Oh...wonderful." Troy stated a bit warily.

"We had a team meeting about... how we haven't been acting like a team. I mean us, not you. Look about the singing thing..."

"Look dude, I don't even want to talk about it." the captain interrupted.

"We just want you to know that we're going to be there, cheering for you."

"Huh?" Troy looked at them, wondering what was going on now.

"Yeah if singing is something you want to do, we should be boosting you up not tearing you down." Zeke added.

"Win or lose, we're team mates. That's what we're about. Even if you turn out to be the worst singer in the world." Chad joked.

"Which we don't know because we haven't heard you sing." Jason piped in.

"And you are not going to hear me sing guys, cause Ryan won't even talk to me... and I don't know why."

"We do." Chad hesitated a bit.

"I baked these fresh today, probably want to try one before we tell you the rest." Zeke handed over a bag of baked goods which Troy took.

"But before we do tell you, we want to ask you something and we want the truth alright." Chad continued.

"We won't be judgemental or anything, we just want to know and support you." Zeke stated.

"Whatever your answer is, we are still your friends right guys?" Jason added.

"Right." the other two boys answered.

Troy stared at his friends for a moment, thinking and finally but slowly nodded his head.

"Is there anything, I mean really anything going on between you and Ryan?" his best friend asked.

The captain sighed and decided to tell his friends the truth and took a deep breath.

"I have feelings for Ryan that I never had for anyone else before and I am not sure if I am gay or not but I know that I like Ryan more than a friend."

"Okay then, how about the time you spent with Gabriella for that school assignment we did. Did you have any type of feelings for her at all?" questioned Chad.

"No, not really..." the basketball star thought about it for a second before answering.

"Then you're gay. I mean how could you not if you spent that much time with a girl like her and didn't feeling anything then that's telling you something."

"I guess I am gay then." the captain released the breath he was holding, since what his friend said made total sense.

"YES! Ha! I told you! You owe me ten bucks!" Jason shouted doing a fist pump.

"Ah! Damn it! I can't believe this. How did you even know." Chad sighed in disbelief.

"Because I have an older brother that is gay."

"You guys made a bet? Well its nice to know that you guys decided to use my love life for your amusement... I thought you guys would be more..." Troy interrupted the two friends sarcastically.

"More what? Shout words of hatred and violence just because you're gay?" Zeke looked at him as if he was crazy.

"Yeah, along the lines of that."

"Look Troy we already told you that we won't be judgemental and support you no matter what and you're our friend and friends stick together." Chad patted the captain's shoulder.

"Thanks you guys. Now what were you saying about why you know Ryan won't talk to me?" Troy went back to the subject at hand.

"Um yeah, about that." Chad looked at the other uneasily.

0******************0

At the same moment...

Gabriella was in one of the science classrooms working on an equation on the blackboard with chalk in her hand near the front of the class, when Taylor and the Scholastic Decathlon team came in. The team walked up to the girl with a bit of a guilt on their faces, mostly on Taylor as Gabriella turned to them with a smile on her face.

"Hey guys, how you are doing with your studies. Is something wrong?" noticing the facial expressions on her friend's face.

"Um, there is something we're not sure how to tell you but its something you should know." the team leader confessed.

"What is it?" putting down her chalk, ready to listen.

"We know that you are Ryan's friend but we did something that we shouldn't have done."

"What did you guys do?" finally putting 2 and 2 together and realized that whatever she is going to hear, it has to do with Ryan change in demeanour.

"Gabriella, we were jerks, no we were worst then jerks because we were mean jerks. We thought Sharpay and the whole singing thing was killing our chances at having you on the Scholastic Decathlon team." Taylor started to explain.

"Okay but what does that got to do with Ryan?" the girl was a bit confused.

"We thought that if we get rid of Sharpay and Ryan that you and Troy would stop spending time practising for the callbacks." the team lead continued.

"You guys! I can't believe this and you did this with the basketball team." Gabriella couldn't believe what she was hearing.

"We knew that Chad can get Troy to say things to make Ryan forget about the callbacks. We planned it and we embarrassed and sorry, are you mad?"

"I am not mad and I understand that the pressure of you wanting to win the Scholastic Decathlon drove you to do whatever you did but you should have just come to me about this, instead of messing with Ryan." the girl sighed.

"We know and we're sorry, that's why we decided to come clean and tell you what we did because we totally regret it. So we hope that since your friends with him that you could tell him what we did and tell him that we sorry." Taylor looked back to the rest of her team.

"Don't you think that tell him your sorry yourself would be better than having me to do it." leaning against the table in front of her facing the other girl.

"It maybe would but it would just hurt him more then we already have." the team leader tried to reason.

"I'm not sure having me to talk to him will do anything, I mean he has already been hurt enough by everyone else in the school but I would try." Gabi closed her eyes and started to pinch the bridge of her nose, not sure what to do.

"Thanks and again we're very sorry." with the last apology, Taylor and the Decathlon team left the classroom.

0******************0

After school...

Troy was walking out of the front doors of the school and down the steps, deep in thought of what Chad and his friends had told him that afternoon of what they did to Ryan. Not sure what to do and trying to come up with something except try to explain things to the other boy but he was not even sure if the blond would even listen to him at all right now. As he continued to walk his phone started to ring in his pocket and the basketball star pulled it out and read Gabriella's name on the ID and answered.

"Hey Gabriella." Troy was not in the mood to talk at that moment.

"I know what happened between you and Ryan." the girl stated.

"Look I can fix this, I don't know how but I will fix this." the boy stated not sure how she knew about the situation but she did.

"I think I can help."

"Really? Please help me." the boy kind of begged, getting any help available at the moment.

"I need to ask you a question first. What do you hope to get out of this, I mean why do you want to fix this with Ryan?" the girl asked seriously.

The boy thought about it for a moment before deciding to tell her the truth about his feelings since she is Ryan's friend and all and she deserves to know.

"I just want to be friends with him again and maybe something more?" Troy answered hopefully.

"Alright than there is something you need to know..." Gabriella satisfied with his answer.

0******************0

Later that night...

We see Troy walking up a driveway and path toward a large expensive house like mansion that belongs to the Evans located on the address that Gabriella had given him over the phone earlier. He was getting nervous as he got to the two large front doors of the house, taking a deep breath and gathering his courage he rang the door bell. Within a minute of waiting one of the doors opened and a middle aged to elderly old man in what seems to be a suit answered the door and Troy assumed that he was the Evans butler.

"Um hi!" the boy was unsure on what to say.

"May I help you?" the butler glanced over the boy from head to toe.

"Yeah, I'm looking for Ryan."

"Who is at the door?" a woman's voice called out from behind the butler when he tried to answer Troy's question.

"Madam, this young gentleman here is looking for master Ryan." the butler answered when a woman came out from behind him.

The woman looked at Troy who he assumed was Ryan's mother from how the butler addressed her.

"Hi! Mrs. Evans, I'm Troy Bolton." the star captain greeted.

"Oh...Oh! Troy!" the woman seems to recognize his name.

Turning her head inside the house she sees her son standing at the top of stairs that leads to the second floor of the house with a sad look on his face and he was shaking his head from side to side, telling her no and started to head back up to his room.

"Um, Ryan is kind of busy with homework and other things from school and he doesn't want to be disturbed, so now really not a good time." Mrs. Evans turned back towards the boy standing at her door.

"I made a mistake Mrs. Evans and I really like Ryan to know that..." the athlete started to explain but stopped not sure on how to continue, "Could you tell him that I came by to see him."

"I will...Troy. Good night." the woman was smiling, finally meeting the infamous Troy that her children who kept talking about.

"Good night, thank you." Troy decided to leave and Mrs. Evans went back inside and the butler closed the door.

As the captain started to walk down the front steps of the Evans residents, he decided to go for a different approach in speaking to Ryan and started to head towards around the back of the house. Most of the lights were off in the back of the house and Gabriella did tell him where Ryan's room was except he wasn't sure where exactly the boy was currently in the house. Deciding to take a chance Troy pulled out his phone and started to call Ryan's cell hoping the other boy would pick up.

Ryan on the other hand was sitting on bed in his room with the lights off feeling down and was wondering what was Troy doing at his house anyways, he made it clear that he didn't want to remember the blond boy at all after the musical. Suddenly his cell which was on the night stand next to his bed started to light up and ring. Reaching over he picked it up and the name Troy appear on the caller ID. Ryan just stared at it not sure if he wanted to answer but finally decide this is going to be the last time that Troy would ever speak to him and decided to answer.

"Hello." Ryan answered softly.

"What you heard the other day, none of that is true. I'm was sick of my friends riding me about singing with you so I said things that I want you to know, I didn't mean any of it." Troy started to explain before the other could hang up on him.

"You sounded very convincing to me." the drama king turned on the lamp next to his bed.

"Listen the guy you know and spent time with at the rehearsals and school is way more me than the guy that said those stupid things." noticing Ryan's room lights had turned on, the athlete started heads towards it.

"Troy the whole musical is making the school wacked, you said so yourself everyone is treating you differently because of it." the blond stood up and started to walk around the room.

"Maybe its because I don't want to be the only the basketball guy anymore. They can't handle it, its not my problem its theirs." Troy had started to climb the tree that was near Ryan's balcony, just like how Gabriella described it to him.

"What about your dad." Ryan stated.

"And its not about my dad. Its about how I feel and I am not letting the team down, they let me down. So I'm going to sing, what about you."

"I don't know Troy." the blond was back sitting on the edge of his bed, facing away from the balcony.

"Then you need to say yes because I brought you something."

"What do you mean?" Ryan was a bit confused.

"Turn around." Troy stated.

Not sure what was going on but Ryan turned his body towards the balcony and saw someone standing there through the sheer curtains covering the glass panes, standing up the blond walked over to the two doors leading to his balcony. Opening them up, revealing the exact same boy who sang with him at the New Years Eve party at the lodge wearing the exact dress attire that night along with the mask he kept from the party. Ryan just stared at the other boy in shock as the boy started to sing.

This could be the start of something new,  
It feels so right to be here with you...oh,  
And now lookin in your eyes,  
I feel in my heart the start of something...new

"Troy?" the blond was dumbfounded.

"I really had fun that night singing with you, you know." Troy took off the mask he was wearing with one hand smiling a bit.

"But how? I mean..." trying to figure out how this happen and tried to wrap his head around at the revelation.

"Gabriella told me that she saw the picture in your room from the party, well I have one as well. So she saw it and you know the rest..." the basketball captain started to explain.

"Wow, she's a good friend." the drama king smiled a bit with his eyes getting misty from remembering the time he had with Troy at the party.

"Yeah, she is." the other boy smiled back.

"So is that the only reason your here."

"Look I really want to be your friend again and maybe...even...something...more?" Troy stated and asked hopefully at the end.

"R-really T-troy?" Ryan stuttered a bit when he heard what the other boy had asked and his heart started to beat a mile a minute.

The basketball captain nodded and pulled out something from behind his back.

"Its pairs audition and I was hoping to sing with you again." holding up the music piece of their song with a hopeful look on his face.

The blond thought about it for a moment before deciding to walk over to the other boy with a shy smile on his lips and took the music sheets from his hand and walked over to the edge of balcony. Relieved that the blond forgave him, giving him a chance to continue singing with him which made the basketball star immensely happy inside and Troy turned around with an incredible smile on his face and joined the other boy where he was standing at that moment.

0******************0

Another chapter done and I think one more to go and that's it for the end of this story. So thanks to all the reviewers so far. So read and review please!

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	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

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The next day...

It was after school and we see the basketball team playing a practise game in the gym for the upcoming championship game with Troy being more focused then ever and was at the top of his game. The captain was happy that he and Ryan had sorted out their problems and everything was back on track with the basketball star, he was practising for the pairs audition and the championship game that was approaching. Doing perfect passes to his team mates and dribbles down the court and with perfect basket score even the coach could see the change in his son's attitude and demeanour and was thrilled.

0******************0

At the same time...

At another part of the school, more specifically in one of the science classrooms we see Gabriella with her Decathlon team mates preparing themselves for the Scholastic Decathlon that will be held at their school. The girl was totally glad that the miss-understanding between Ryan and Troy was fixed and they were talking and friends again and decided to continue to practice together for the pairs audition. She was writing a complex science formula for chemistry category on the blackboard explaining to her team mate on how the problem works and how it is done to solve it. The rest of the team was taking notes and manages to understand Gabriella's explanation and shouted out in joy as Taylor who was sitting nearby gave a high five to a team member and pointed to Gabi in a 'you're the man!' expression.

0******************0

A couple of hours later...

Basketball practice was over and the team was in the locker-room with some getting ready to shower with others already showered and Troy was one of those who already had. Already dressed with a white towel around his neck the captain sprint out while greeting Zeke along the way into the hallway of the locker-room, he scrubbed his hair one last time before tossing the towel into a nearby washing bin. Then checking his hair one last time in the gigantic mirror in the locker-room hall, the brunette rushed out of there while pushing the rest of his teammates aside like a mad man trying to get to somewhere in a hurry.

0******************0

At the same time...

The Decathlon team was doing an experiment wearing green aprons and goggles over their eyes as Gabriella explain to the rest of her team on how the experiment would work.

"Hey you guys, come here." telling her team mates to surround her as she started to explain things.

There was a large beaker of clear liquid next to her on the table and she had her notebook opened to somewhere and was referring to her own notes as she continues.

"Go ahead and put 5 grams of this in..." pointing at a substance next to the beaker," and that causes it to change from an acidic state, causing the colour to change from pink to purple." as one of her team members did what she just said.

The rest of the Decathlon team had their own notebooks open writing down notes on what Gabriella explained on what just happened in the experiment and they were totally understanding what just happened.

"Oh! Got to go, see you guys later!" looking at the classroom clock it was just passed 5:30.

The girl put down her book and took off her goggles and rushed out of there, hanging up her apron as she went out the door.

0******************0

Somewhere else in the school...

We see Ryan leaning against the lockers in a nearly empty hallway at one end where it turns off into another hall, dressed in his usual fashion wear waiting for something or more precisely someone. The blond decided that it would be better if he and Troy practised with Kelsi at school since it was more convenient for Troy because he had to practice for the upcoming championship game. Of course a couple of students had passed him as he stood there looking at him weirdly but the blond just ignored their looks and pulled out his phone to look at the time.

Unknown to the drama king, the basketball team's star captain was sprinting down the hall from the other end out of breath and was coming up from behind. Coming up to the other boy Troy slowed down his steps and catching his breath before he silently walked up to Ryan with a smile on his face and leaned against the lockers next him and tapped the blond on the shoulder. Quickly turning around to see who it is, the male Evans twin immediately smiled back at the other boy in front of him.

"You're late." Ryan gave Troy a laughing smile.

"Come on!" grabbing the blond's hand, Troy sprinted back down the hall where he just came from dragging along the other boy behind him.

0******************0

At the same moment...

Gabriella had all of her things with her and was dashing out of the school's front doors and down the steps to where Sharpay was waiting in her pink convertible at the front of the school. Running around to the passenger's side of the car, the girl tossed her things in the back and hopped into the seat next to drama queen.

"Finally! Let's book it!" Sharpay rolled her eyes behind her sunglasses and the two drove off somewhere for their practice.

0******************0

Back with the boys...

The two were in the school's music room with Kelsi on the piano practising their pairs audition song with their own parts and was sounding great with their two voices which actually melded together quite well. The two boys were sitting on some stools next to the piano with pages of the song which Troy was holding up in between them with Kelsi playing the melody on the piano.

Both: Strength to believe...

Troy: We're breakin' free

Ryan: We're soarin'

Troy: Flyin'

Both:  
There's not a star in heaven,  
That we can reach

Troy: If we're tryin'

Both: Yeah, we're breaking free

Troy: Oh, we're breaking free

Ryan: Ohhhh

Troy:  
Can you feel it building,  
Like a wave the ocean just can't control

Ryan:  
Connected by a feelin',  
Ohhhh, in our very souls

0******************0

The next day...

It was the beginning of lunch when a new bulletin announcement was placed over the callbacks sheet, stating that the callbacks for the two leading pairs auditions were moved to Friday after school instead of Thursday. Which happens to be the same day and during the same time as the basketball team's championship game and the Scholastic Decathlon competition. Which is why we now see the Evans twins in the auditorium during their lunch hour following Ms. Darbus around the main stage asking for an explanation for the sudden change in the audition times.

"Ms. Darbus, wasn't the auditions suppose to be on Thursday? How come they are on Friday now?" Sharpay asked as she and Ryan followed the teacher.

"Well Sharpay if you must know. I just remembered that I have an important doctors appointment on Thursday that I have to go to, so I changed to audition date to Friday instead." as Darbus check on things around the stage.

"Couldn't you like go on Friday instead?" Ryan asked.

"Are you saying that the auditions are more important than my health?" the teacher stopped and turned to the twin with an raised eyebrow.

"That's not what we meant..." the drama queen quickly replied.

"Then no and that's that. Besides it will give you an extra day to prepare. Now if you two would excuse me, I have important things to take care of for our upcoming musical." Darbus quickly turned back around and continued on what she was doing.

The drama teacher kept on walking and left the stage leaving the twins who looked at one another with a 'now what?' look, unknown to them Kelsi saw the entire exchange between them.

0******************0

After school...

The Evans twins and Kelsi was standing in front of the drama bulletin board near the school's main office staring at the new posting that Ms. Darbus placed over the old one that stated the new time change. At that moment Troy, Chad, Zeke, Jason, Gabriella and Taylor comes strolling into the school's front doors and spotted the other three and walked over to them.

"Hey what's going on?" Troy asked as he stood next to Ryan.

"That's what's going on." the male blond pointed at the posting.

The basketball captain and rest turned their heads towards the bulletin board and read the new posting time on it.

"Callbacks, the same time as the game?" the captain couldn't believe it.

"And the Scholastic Decathlon." Gabriella added.

"Why would they do that?" stated Taylor.

"I smell a rat name Darbus." Chad stated.

"You really shouldn't call her that, she is a teacher after all." Gabriella replied.

"Yeah but still..."

"Anyways, Ms. Darbus said that she has to go to an important doctors appointment that she won't change the scheduled time." stated Kelsi.

"We tried to change her mind but she won't have it." Sharpay added.

"So what should we do?" Ryan turned to Troy.

"We're going to sing, maybe. Alright this is only going to happen if we all work together. Now whose in?" the star player thought for a moment before putting his hand out.

Ryan just smiled and placed his hand on top of Troy's followed by everyone else hands, smiling at one another.

0******************0

Friday...

It was a big day for the school since the basketball team's championship game, the Scholastic Decathlon competition and the auditions were happening on the same day and at the same time made things a bit stressful for some. We see Troy and the rest of his team coming into Ms. Darbus's classroom with Zeke holding a large cake and headed over to where Gabriella, Ryan, Sharpay and Taylor were sitting together and surprise the two decathlon members. It was a cake with white frosting and a large pi sign on top in the middle of it with a red decorative boarder. The cake surprised the two decathlon members and in turn Gabriella and Taylor had one for Troy and the boys which had them following the two girl over to a white board with scientific equations that has to do with basketball.

"Oh, equations..." Troy looked at the board, not sure of what to think.

Gabriella then just turned the board over revealing the back with a small mural of a cartoon Wildcat doing a slam dunk and with the words, 'Go! Wildcats Hoopsters'. Understanding the concept now, the two girl suddenly pulled out soft stuff toy basketballs and started to throw it at the boys and immediately the boys grabbed the ones that were thrown at them and retaliated. Shortly after the fight the boys left the classroom except for Troy and Chad who went over to the Evans twins where Chad grabbed Sharpay and Troy grinned as he grabbed Ryan, they pulled them to the door of the classroom where a surprise awaits for them. In the hall was the rest of the basketball team standing in a formation of three rows and Troy and Chad joined them as Ms. Darbus walked into the classroom.

"From our team to yours." called out Chad.

"G-O-D-R-A-M-A-C-L-U-B-Exclaimation mark!" each of the team members shouted out a letter ending with Troy's exclamation mark as they pull open their jackets, showing their t-shirts with giant red letters spelling out the phase 'Go Drama Club!'.

"Well, it seems we Wildcats are in for an interesting afternoon." stated Darbus as she saw the display and walked back into the classroom.

Sharpay smiled and Ryan just grinned as the basketball team went back into the classroom and Troy patted the blond boy's shoulder as he passed him pulling him back in as well.

0******************0

After school...

At 3:10 the bell rang throughout the school signalling the ending of classes for the day and the students started to rush out of their classrooms holding banners, flags and foam fingers with the school's Wildcats symbols on them and started to cheer as they headed towards the gym. In the gym students were among the bleachers and the school's marching band was playing with the cheerleader team doing their cheer dance and the opposing school's basketball team was practising dribbles on the court.

In the locker-room Coach Bolton had dressed up formally with dress pants, shirt, tie and jacket and walked over where his son was getting ready for his big game.

"How you're feeling?" the coach tugged on his jacket as he asked Troy.

"Nervous." the teen turned his head as he was tying his laces on his shoes.

"Yeah, me too. Wish I could suit up and play along side with you." as the older Bolton adjusted his tie.

"Hey, you had your turn."

"You know what I want from you today?" the coach walked over to his son and sat down on the bench across from him.

"Championship." Troy smiled knowingly.

"It'll come or it won't, what I want from you is to have fun. I know all about the pressure and probably too much is coming from me. What I really want is to see my son, having the time of his life playing the game we both love. You give me that and I'll will sleep with a smile on my face no matter how the score goes."

"Thanks coach, uh dad."

"And since we are having this father and son talk, I think its a good time to get something else out of the way as well."

"Uh, whats that dad?" Troy was a bit confused and afraid at the same time.

"I know that you had some issues that you have been having troubles dealing with the past week and I have also heard Chad and some of the other boys talking..." the coach began.

"Oh..." the captain was finally understanding.

"And I just want you to know that you are my son no matter what and nothing will change that. I love you and want you to be happy not just in basketball but in life as well. Now I just want you to be honest with me, is there anything you want to tell me?" Mr. Bolton looked at his son.

"Um...dad..." the star swallowed hard and his eyes started to tear up.

"Yes son." the coach listened.

"I...I'm...I'm sssorry." Troy stuttered a bit.

"What for?" the older Bolton gave a questioning look and tilt his head to the side a bit.

"That I didn't turn out what you want me to be." the boy's voice started to be come hoarse.

"Look there is nothing to be sorry about for who you really are." the coach stated looking right into his son eyes like he was saying 'it's okay'.

Troy just looked at his dad for a few moments before he decided to tell his dad the truth about himself and took a deep breath.

"I...I...I'm gay." and hung his head down with shame.

"Hey, hey, hey, men shouldn't cry like this. See that wasn't so hard was it?" Mr. Bolton reached over and grabbed hold of his son's shoulder to calm him down.

"So you are not mad are anything?" Troy looked up and let out the breath he was holding and wiped his tears away with his hands.

"I had a lot of time this past week to think about things and it gave me some time to accept that this is who you are." the coach just looked at his son with understanding.

"Thanks dad and what about mom?" the star sniffed a bit.

"Not sure what she'll think but I don't think it will be that bad. We'll know when you tell her and it should be soon." his dad answered truthfully.

"Alright."

"And Ryan? Is he your boyfriend?" his dad asked.

"No..I just came to terms with it myself and I'm kind of still new to this, and a boyfriend? Well not yet anyway but I want him to be." the younger Bolton smiled a bit.

"You just know how to pick them son." the coach joked and Troy just grinned.

0******************0

Somewhere else in the school...

In one of the large classrooms the Scholastic Decathlon was about to begin and students along with parents and teachers were sitting down on the seats that were setup in the room for the audience. At the front we see the two teams listening to the referee of the match as he explained all the rules for the competition.

"Welcome to the 10th annual Scholastic Decathlon, East High Wildcats versus West High Knights." the speaker announced as the referee finished and walked over to the judges table and the two teams started to get ready.

0******************0

The auditorium...

Ms. Darbus, Sharpay, Ryan, Kelsi and an Asian student walked up to the doors that lead to the auditorium and the teacher went to open them when she noticed that they were locked. So pulling out her set of keys to the doors and tried again but the keys won't turn or budge at all and the drama teacher started to get frustrated.

"What the? Go to the office and get the master key for auditorium." Darbus turned to the Asian student and ordered them to go.

Unknown to her, Sharpay, Ryan, Kelsi turned to one another and smirked.

0******************0

Back with the decathlon...

The first round had just started and it was Gabriella against a boy from the other team and they were working out a problematic equation which Gabriella manages to finish first. Having one of the judges to check her work, it was correct and they won the first round and everyone from their school including the parents that were there cheered.

0******************0

The auditorium...

It took a while for the student that Darbus sent to retrieve the master key from the main office and she was getting a bit impatient for the delays for starting the auditions. Finally the student came back with the keys and Darbus immediately took them and tried to unlock the doors again which worked this time to her relief.

"Finally! Alright everyone lets go!" Darbus ushered everyone in.

0******************0

Same time at the decathlon...

Gabriella and Taylor was about to sit back down from their win of the first round when the science experiment that they had setup before the competition started to boil. As it boils the beaker of liquid started to emit a stench that started to smell so bad like a massive stink bomb which started to make everyone started to cover their nose. The smell was too much to bear and Gabriella and Taylor rushed out of there as fast as they can and everyone else started to leave.

0******************0

The auditorium...

Ms. Darbus was all set up near the front of the auditorium with the Asian student from before as her assistant sitting at her make shift desk and students who wanted to see the audition started to enter.

"Hello! Right here, right here." the teacher greeted and pointed where the students should sit.

Kelsi was on the stage sitting at her piano and was getting ready and setting up. In the back dressing room we see Sharpay in a pink bathrobe pacing around waiting for her partner when the door to her dressing room opened and in came Gabriella.

"Finally, now lets change. We don't have much time." and Sharpay handed the other girl her dress.

0******************0

Sorry for the long wait but just got a new job last month and my was kind of messed up and hectic so I didn't have much time to work on this chapter. Anyways this was suppose to be the last chapter of this story but when I was working on the last parts I realized it was a bit long, so I decide to split the last chapter into two parts. So now the story will have 10 chapters, an even number for this story. Anyways the very last chapter will be up soon, I hope and thanks for all the review. So read and continue reviewing!

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	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10

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The championship game...

The team just left the locker-room whooping and cheering as they headed out sprinting and jumping into the hall that led to the gym where the game was being held. As they entered onto the court with the mascot leading the team, the audience of students started cheering for them and they started to grab basketballs of the rack and started to do dribbles, layups and shooting hoops.

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The auditorium...

Most of the students that was attending to see the audition had already sate down in the front center seats of the auditorium, when students from the decathlon started to enter as well with Taylor leading and started to sit down.

"My, my what do we have here." the teacher wondered why the sudden increase of attendees.

"Mr. Darbus, didn't you say you wanted more students to be interested in theatre?" Taylor asked her and took her seat.

"Well yes I suppose so, anyways thank you all for attending our auditions. Casting the leads of the show is both a challenge and a responsibility, a joy and a burden. I commend you and all other young artist to hold out the moon, the sun and the stars." Darbus announced and everyone clapped while her assistant took a picture.

"Shall we soar together! Sharpay and Gabriella!"

Immediately hip hop type of tango mixture kind of music started to play and Gabriella came out in a red dress from the right side of the stage and Sharpay came out of the other side in a blue dress and started to sing.

Sharpay:  
I believe in dreamin',  
Shooting for the stars

(Sharpay stepped up dancing a bit followed by Gabriella.)

Gabiella:  
Baby, to be number one,  
You've got to raise the bar

Sharpay:  
Kickin' and a scratchin',  
Grinding out my best

(The blond did a small outward kick and put her hands in a clawing like motion ending with swinging her hip from side to side.)

Gabiella:  
Anything it takes,  
To climb the ladder of success

(Gabriella then continued off with her hips swinging ending with a climbing a ladder like motion with her hands.)

Both:  
Work our tails off everyday,  
Gotta bump the competition,  
Blow them all away

(Both girls brought their arms up to head level with one forearm up and the other on its side touching it's elbow and then alternate positions a couple of times before bumping their hips together. Then end it off with Sharpay doing a blowing kiss gesture and the other girl did a sliding away dance move and quickly sprinted back to the other girl.)

Sharpay: Yeah, we're gonna

Both:  
Bop, bop, bop,  
Bop to the top

Gabiella: Slip and slide and ride that rhythm

Both:  
Jump and hop,  
Hop 'til we drop

Sharpay: And start again

Both:  
Zip, zap, zop,  
Pop like a mop

(They did a bunch of dance moves which were based on salsa moves ending with couple salsa dance.)

Gabiella: Scoot around the corner

Both:  
Move it to the groove,  
'Til the music stops,  
Do the bop, bop, bop to the top,  
Don't ever stop,  
Bop to the top,  
Gimme, gimme,  
Shimmy, shimmy

0******************0

Back in the gym...

The championship game was about to start between the Wildcats and the opposing team and Troy and his teammates were in a circle facing one another with their hands all at the center, ready to go. After their break, the team entered the court and shook hands with the opposite team members and quickly took their positions for the started of their game and after the referee blew his whistle, the game begins.

0******************0

Back in the auditorium...

Both:  
Shake some booty and turn around,  
Flash a smile in their direction

(The two girls continued with their couple salsa dancing then going back in to a series of mimicking each other dance moves.)

Sharpay: Show some muscle

Gabiella: Do the hustle

Sharpay: Yeah, we're gonna

Both:  
Bop, bop, bop,  
Bop to the top

Gabiella: Wipe away your inhibitions

Both:  
Stump, stump, stump,  
Do the rump

Sharpay: And strut your stuff

Both:  
Bop, bop, bop,  
Straight to the top,  
Going for the glory,  
We'll keep stepping up,  
And we just won't stop,  
'Til we reach the top,  
Bop to the top

The girls continued with their dance and as their song came to an end the curtains behind them started to open up revealing a step ladder decorated in gold tinsel and a disco ball hanging near the top. On their last few lines both started to climb up the ladder with Sharpay a bit higher than Gabriella and when they finished both girls had one of their arms throw out to the side.

The audience start clapping right after the performance which gave Taylor the cue who had her laptop open on her lap and did a couple of quick key stokes on the keyboard.

"Alright Wildcats, time for an orderly exit." the girl stated as a program on her computer started to activate with an message box popping up at the end saying 'message transmitted' sending something through the school's computer system.

Sharpay and Gabriella had gotten off the step ladder and was doing thank you bows to the audience and noticed Taylor giving them the thumbs up stating that the second part of the plan was in motion.

0******************0

Back in the gym...

The championship game was still going on with the score tied at 8 for each team when all of the sudden the score board started to go on a frizz with the lights going on and off and everything just stop.

"We seem to be experiencing some technical difficulties uh, some is wrong with the board here. The referee is requesting a time out." a voice announced over the speakers with the referee blowing the whistle.

Of course Troy was just grinning as it happens and Chad came up behind him and elbowed him a bit to tell him to get moving and quickly the captain ran off the court and of course with the coach seeing the entire exchange. After a few moments of discussion between the judges, both teams were gathered around their table to wait for the decision of the current situation and finally the principle of the school stood up.

"We are currently having problems with the equipment but we will get this figured out very soon. In the mean time for safety regulations, we need to make an all orderly exit from the gym. Please, thank you." the principle stated and immediately Troy's basketball team started to leave the gym.

0******************0

Back in the auditorium...

The girls were continuing doing bows more like Sharpay was still doing them with some of the audience members standing up still clapping and the female Evans spotted someone and did a call me. Both of them then leaves the stage exiting on the right as Ms. Darbus got up and started head towards onto the stage with her assistants following her as the step ladder and the disco ball was being removed.

"Do you see why we love the theatre people, well done. Ah, Troy Bolton and Ryan Evans." Ms. Darbus called out as the two girls came back out from the side of the stage.

Noticing not either of the boys had showed up the drama teacher turned to Sharpay.

"Sharpay, where is your brother?"

"Uh, he had and upset stomach and is in the backstage washroom." the girl answered hoping to give Troy more time to get to the auditorium.

Immediately the teacher head towards the back of the stage with the girls following to where the dress-rooms and washrooms were and knocked on the door to the washrooms.

"Ryan! Are you okay in there?"

"Um, yes I am Ms. Darbus! Just having a bit of stage fright?" Ryan answered nervously as he was pacing back and forth behind the door wearing a pair of jeans with an unbuttoned shirt with a t-shirt underneath and the sleeves rolled up.

"First of all you never had stage fright before so this isn't a ploy to waste time is it?" the teacher ask suspiciously.

"Um, no?" the boy answered hopefully that the teacher would buy it.

"I will give you the count of 3 to open this door or you will be disqualified from the auditions, you hear me! 1...2..." the teacher counted and immediately Ryan opened the door.

"I'm fine."

"Good, now lets go." and the drama teacher turned around and headed back out to the stage with Ryan and the girls following her.

"As I was saying, Troy Bolton and Ryan Evans." Ms. Darbus stated once again and one last time, "Troy!".

At that point Ryan was starting to get his hopes up and was hoping the other boy would show up soon.

"He'll be here." Ryan spoke out.

"The theatre as I always pointed out, waits for no one. I'm sorry." the teacher turned to the blond boy.

"Well we are done here and I am sorry to say that this musical won't go through." announced to the entire group.

At that moment Troy comes running in from the main doors of the auditorium with a white jacket and sports pants entire which he put on when he left the gym and immediately Ryan's spirits were up and started to smile.

"No wait! Wait! Ms. Darbus! I'm ready! We can sing!" the captain called out as he ran up onto the stage up to the teacher.

"I've called your name twice."

"Ms. Darbus please? Please?" Ryan was now standing opposite of Troy begging.

"Rules are rules." she stated.

The audience members starts to leave the auditorium but was stopped by the crowd of student coming from the basketball game so they could watch the auditions apparently.

"I don't know what is going on here but in any case its far too late..." the teacher said as she sees the crowd filling up the seats.

"Nothings too late, didn't you always say the show must go on?" Kelsi stated and heads towards the piano that was pushed out on stage.

"Indeed I did, I guess that's show biz." and Ms. Darbus just looked at the crowd of people and walks off the stage.

Troy then walks off the stage and grabs two mikes and headed back over to Ryan and handed over one to him, then walks back over to where Kelsi was on the piano and stood next to it with the blond boy standing at the middle of the stage. The captain then just nodded towards Kelsi to signal her to start playing but the male Evans just stood there staring at the audience. The basketball star turned towards him and wondered whats wrong with him and signalled Kelsi to stop and headed over to the other boy.

"I can't do it Troy." Ryan turned to Troy.

"Why not? You did it a lot of times before. This shouldn't be any different." the brunette whispered.

"But not with all these people staring and not with you here. Its always been with my sister." and started to turn away from the stage.

"Hey, hey look at me, right at me. Just forget they are there and look at me. Just like the first time we sing together, remember? Like kindergarten." Troy grabbed hold of Ryan by the wrist and stopped him making the other boy stare at him.

When the captain was sure the boy wasn't going to leave, he turned back towards Kelsi and signalled her again to start playing and he let go of the blond boy's wrist and just stood by him as the pianist began playing and a backdrop of a city at night was placed behind them.

Troy:  
We're soarin', flying,  
There's not a star in heaven,  
That we can't reach

(Troy lifted the mike up near his mouth and stared into the other boy's eyes as he singed to him and raised his hand palm up towards the other boy.)

Ryan:  
If we're tryin',  
So we're breakin free

(Ryan this time started to sing and raised his own free hand and lightly touch and slid across Troy's.)

Troy:  
You know the world can see us,  
In a way that's different than who we are

(Troy took hold of Ryan's hand not caring about the reaction of the audience and as they take a couple of steps forward facing the audience.)

Ryan:  
Creating space between us,  
'Til we're separate hearts

(They let go of their holding hands and stepped away from each other.)

Both:  
But your faith, it gives me strength,  
Strength to believe...

Troy: We're breakin' free

(Immediately the music went right into a faster upbeat melody and Troy quickly stepped back up to Ryan and smiled at him.)

Ryan: We're soarin'

(The other boy started to smile back.)

Troy: Flyin'

(The audience surprisingly had started to move and clap to the beat themselves obvious to what the two boys were doing.)

Both:  
There's not a star in heaven,  
That we can't reach

(Both boys started to have fun and began to move to the beat of the song.)

Troy: If we're tryin'

Both: Yeah, we're breaking free

Troy: Oh, we're breakin' free

Ryan: Ohhhh

Troy:  
Can you feel it building,  
Like a wave the ocean just can't control

(The two boys started to move away from each other towards the opposite ends of the stage.)

Ryan:  
Connected by a feelin',  
Ohhh, in our very souls

Troy: Our very souls, ooooh

Both:  
Rising 'til it lifts us up,  
So everyone can see...

(The two of them started to move back towards the center facing each other once more.)

Troy: We're breaking free

Ryan: We're soarin'

(Both boys circled each other with Ryan twirling a bit and Troy had one of his arms out like a bird that was flying and ended up on their own same side.)

Troy: Flyin'

Both:  
There's not a star in heaven,  
That we can't reach

Troy: If we're tryin'

Both: Yeah, we're breakin' free

Troy: Oh, we're breakin' free

Ryan: Ohhhh, runnin'

(The blond started to back step and circle Troy this time to his right side, while the other boy turned his body and head to follow his partner's movement. Then the same the basketball captain repeated what Ryan did and returned back to his original position beside the other boy.)

Troy:  
Climbin'  
To get to that place

Both: To be all that we can be

Troy: Now's the time

(At this time the audience was started to get into the song as well.)

Both: So we're breaking free

Troy: We're breakin free

Ryan: Ohhh, yeah

(Ryan started to move to where Kelsi was and Troy followed and both stood near the piano dancing while they continued to sing. Kelsi immediately stood up and kicked the piano bench away from her and continued playing standing up.)

Troy:  
More than hope,  
More than faith

(Chad started to stand up and started to clap to the beat and the rest of his team started to join him.)

Ryan:  
This is truth,  
This is fate,  
And together,

Both: We see it comin'

(As this was happening, at the main entrance of the auditorium, Coach Bolton walked watched his son and Ryan on stage singing and started to smile a bit.)

Troy:  
More than you,  
More than me

(Suddenly a large crescent moon with a face prop started to lower down onto the middle of the stage and Ryan started to head back to where the moon was dragging Troy along with him by his hand.)

Ryan: Not a want, but a need

Both: Both of us breakin' free

(Once they got to the moon, Troy swung his arm that had Ryan's hand in it and launched the blond into a spin. The drama boy started to twirl away a bit from his partner like ballet dancer and Troy slid forward a bit following the other boy.)

Ryan: Soarin'

Troy: Flyin'

Both:  
There's not a star in heaven,  
That we can't reach,  
If we're tryin'

(Now the entire basketball team, cheerleaders along with Sharpay and Gabriella were standing up moving and clapping to the beat of the song and even Ms. Darbus joined in as well.)

Troy: Yeah, we're breakin' free

Ryan:  
Breakin' free,  
We're runnin'

(Then the two boys pranced their way towards the back of the stage and went around behind the moon prop in opposite directions ending up back towards the front of the stage once more.)

Troy: Ohhh, climbin'

Both:  
To get to the place,  
To be all that we can be,  
Now's the time

Troy: Now's the time, yeah

Ryan: So we're breakin' free

Troy: Oh, we're breakin' free

Ryan: Ohhhh

(As the boys started to slow down and catch their breath from all the moving around the stage and singing, they turn towards one another and stared into each other eyes.)

Both: You know the world can see us,  
In a way that's different than who we are

As the song ended everyone was standing up, screaming in applause and cheering for the two especially the Troy's teammates and the two boys just looked at the audience and started to smile. Even Coach Bolton was impressed and even felt proud of his son at that moment and started to smile like crazy just a bit.

The boys then gestured at Kelsi for additional applause and the pianist stood towards the audience and did a bow with huge grin on her face. Then out of nowhere without even thinking, Troy leaned over towards Ryan and kissed the boy on the cheek which of course he just sort of stood there in shock of what just happened. He couldn't believe that Troy kissed him in front of the almost entire school, even though it wasn't on the lips it was still something. He was brought out of his shock by Troy's hand squeezing his and the other boy was smiling at him and the blond just blushed shyly and smiled back.

0******************0

Back in the gym...

The championship basketball game had resumed and it was during the last part of the game with less than 10 seconds left on the clock and Troy was dribbling down the court towards the opposing team's side. It was 66 to 67 and if they make this basket then they would win. Troy quickly passed the ball to Zeke who immediately did a fake pass and then a real one to Troy who was in the open and quickly toss the ball and scored a basket as the timer went off and won the game.

The rest of the team, cheerleaders and the audience started cheering and screaming and the team itself started to group together in the middle of the court, bouncing around in excitement.

"The East High Wildcats are the champions! Congratulations!" the announcer announced.

Over to the side Coach Bolton was already holding the trophy in his hand and was shaking hands with the other team's coach thanking him for a good game and immediately started to head towards his team on the court.

"Coming through! Coming through!" the coach shouted as he walked towards his son.

Handing the trophy over to his son congratulating him and the team, Chad and the others lifted up Troy carrying him around with the trophy in his hand lifted up over his head.

"Go team! Wildcats! Go team! Wildcats!" everyone shouted.

Once his team let him down, Troy handed the trophy over to Chad who took off with it around the court with everyone else following.

"I'm proud of you son!" the coach hugged Troy.

"Oh! Thanks dad!" the brunette hugged back happily, smiling.

"Bravo!" Ms. Darbus came up to them congratulating them.

"Brava!" the coach replied, now being on good terms with the drama teacher.

As the two teachers left Troy to himself we see Ryan walking up from behind him with a smile on his face as the star captain was being appraised by others.

"Congratulations, Wildcat!" Ryan stood behind Troy grinning.

Turning around the star pulled the other boy into an embrace, hugging the blond tightly with arms around the waist then loosening his hold a bit before pulling away a bit and grinned at his singing partner.

"Thanks. So you want to go with me to the after party?" Troy asked the other boy smiling at him.

"You're asking me to the after party?"

"Of course, who else would I ask to go with me." the brunette grinned and the blond nodded happily in response.

At the heat of the moment Troy pulled the other boy towards him a bit more and started to lean forward like he was about to kiss him on the lips, when Chad came bounding up towards them with the ball in his hand.

"Yo! Team voted you the game ball, captain." the boy handed the ball over happily, not knowing he was interrupting something.

"Yeah, thank you. Thanks a lot. Now if you would excuse me." pushing his friend away a bit with his arm and step forward again towards Ryan.

Putting the ball under his right arm, the captain wrapped his left around the others waist and pulled him up against his body and just grinned at him a bit. Ryan started to feel warm with Troy's body so close to his, his face started to heat up in embarrassment and he shy his head away. With his right hand still free Troy touched the other boy's cheek, turning his head back slowly towards himself. Staring into the blond's eyes Troy leaned forward and kissed the boy firmly on the lips, after a few moment he pulled away smiling with Ryan shyly looking back at him with rosy cheeks. It was both boys first kisses with anyone and they were glad it was each other then with some other person. At that moment being too busy with basking in each others closeness, the boys didn't notice Gabriella and Sharpay walking up to them until Gabriella congratulated Troy on his winning.

"Congratulations, Wildcat!" the girl shouted snapping both boys out of their moment.

"What about your team?" the star captain turned to Gabriella still smiling.

"We won too." the girl replied happily.

Shaking his head with a smile, Chad left the them alone and walked right into Taylor and grabbed her by the arms and swung her around making her stop in front of him.

"So, you are going with me to the after party right?" the boy stated.

"What? Like on a date?" the girl asked.

"Oh it must be your lucky day."  
Immediately the girl turned around and headed over to where Gabriella was with Troy, Ryan and Sharpay and pulled her away a bit from the others all excited.

"Chad just asked me out?" Taylor stated happily and Gabriella smiled back being happy for her friend.

Sharpay at that moment decided to leave her brother and his suppose boyfriend alone and walked off but was stopped mid stride by Zeke who was holding a small red duffel bag in his hands.

"Hey Sharpay, I think that you are really good. I admire you so much."

"And why wouldn't you? And now bye, bye!" the drama queen looked at him with an unbelievable expression.

"Oh, wait and I baked you some cookies." the boy pulled out a bag of home made cookies and handed it over to her.

"Um thanks..." just lightly taking the cookies into her hands, not sure what to do with it before walking away again.

Back over with Troy and his group of teammates, cheerleaders and friends who still celebrating and cheering, the captain grabbed hold of Kelsi for a moment.

"Composer, here's your game ball. You deserve it, play-maker." Troy stated as he handed the ball over to the pianist and the group cheered.

Troy then turned back celebrating with Ryan and the others as Kelsi lightly played with the ball in her hands and looked around a bit, not sure of what to do now. Then Jason came by and took the hat that Kelsi was wearing off, letting her hair down then guiding her hands in a throwing position making the girl and boy smile and tossed the ball upward soaring through the air and into the basket.

0******************0

After the game...

The entire gym was cleared out since everyone went home to get ready for the after party and balloons, confetti and streamers were left on the main court to be cleaned up the next. We see Zeke standing alone on the court with a red balloon in his hand walking back and forth thinking until Sharpay came running in from one of the side doors towards the boy.

"These cookies are genius! The best thing I ever tasted! Would you make more for me Zeke!" the girl shouted out tossing the empty bag of cookies in her hands, making the player turn towards her in surprise.

Sharpay then started to dash towards him and Zeke started to back away in a bit of confusion, then started to run away from her. But before he could, Sharpay grabbed a hold of him in a glomp with a crazy grin making the boy stop.

"I might make you a creme brulee." Zeke grinned making the drama queen sigh in content.

0******************0

Sorry for such a long wait for the last chapter since my computer broke down again back in March and just recently I manage to get it up and running again so its been a couple of months. But I finally manage to finish this story after so long of a wait. Yea! Anyways thats the end of that story. For those who are asking if I am doing a sequel, I really don't know at this point. I am leaning toward maybe not because I have things to do and maybe thinking of continuing my other unfinished stories mostly the Power Ranger ones? Who knows? So thanks to all the reviewers who supported this story to the end and I hope you continue reviewing. So see you guys around, maybe in my other stories.

0******************0 


End file.
